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ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY
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HISTORY
OF THE
APSLEY AND BATHURST
FAMILIES.
Thomas Apsley, =
of Thakeham Place,
Esquire of the Body
to Edward IV. and
Queen Elizabeth.
Beatrix, dau. of
of Sussex, by the e
She was one of th
of the Quae
d.
William Apsley,
of Thakeham Place.
cl- 1527-
=Jane, dau. of William Ashburr
She married, and, Richard Co
of Slaugham Place.
John Apsley,
of Thakeham Place,
Iron-works at
Shipley, 1582.
William Apsley.
d. 1583.
married
Eliza Lloyd.
Sir Edward Apsley,
Knt. of Thakeham Place.
m. Eliza Elmes,
of Lydford, Northants.
: 1st, Jane, dau. of
John Michell,
of Buckfield, Sussex.
=2nd, Mary, dau. of
I Edward Lewkenor,
I of Kingston-Bowsey.
Anthony,
of Ticehurst.
Alive 1628.
married
Judith Randolph.
b. 1578.
1 I
Ann, Col. Edward Apsley
m.Matt.Caldecott. of Thakeham Place,
She inherited M.P. for Steyning.
Thakeham Place Sequestrator for .Sussex
from her brother to the Parliament.
Edward.
Alice, = Sir J
570.
Lord
the
Qu
Elizabeth Jekfekay,
William,
d. 161 1, m. Sir Edward
unmarried.
Montagu, K.B., created
Left Old Place
Baron Montagu.
d. 1640.
to Sir Allen
Apsley, junio
5Y, Elizabeth,
1
Alice,
Lady in Waiting to
Queen Elizabeth
married
Sir John Ba
ex of Bohemia.
Butler. ere.
m. Sir Albertus Morton,
—
Sec. of State to
D
James I.
and Ambassador at
Ma
M
the Hague.
HISTORY
OF THE
APSLEY & BATHURST
FAMILIES.
COMPILED BY
JULIA ALEXANDER HANKEY.
E. W. SAVORY, STEAM PRESS, CIRENCESTER.
1889.
Stephen Apsley. = Margaret, dau. and heiress of
■ Apsley, at Thakeham, I Slephen Le Power, d. 1352.
r. Pulljotough, SusscK. Sergeanl-al-Law,
Alive I34r I ovfnet of Thakeham Place.
Stephen Apsley, = dau. and heiress ol
of Thakeh am Place. I Papiland.
John Apsley, = JONE, dau. and heiress of
of Thakeham Place. I John Sidney of Alford,
Ince, I of Sussex, by the dau
Body She was one of the n
and oflheQiieeifo
of Old Place, Pulborough.
Nicholas Apsley, = Mary,
of Old Place. |
547^
in Waiting 1
:cn Elizabeth
Elizabeth Mont.\gu,
m. Robert Eerlie,
Ilaron Willoughby d'Ercsby,
Earls of Abingdon.
ons Willoughby d'Ere
Barons Gwydyr.
HISTORY
OF THE
APSLEY & BATHURST
FAMILIES.
COMPILED BY
JULIA ALEXANDER HAN KEY.
E. W, SAVORY, STEAM PRESS, CIRENCESTER,
1889.
PRINTED BY
E. \V. SAVORY, STEAM PRESS, CIRENCESTER.
304S351
iNDEJi.
HISTORY OF THE APSLEY FAMILY.
PAGE
Pedigree i
Apsleys and Le Powers i
Rebellion of Jack Cade 2
Elder Branch of Apsleys ...
John Apsley's Ironworks ...
Connection between the Apsleys and Bathursts through
the Randolphs 4
Letters from Queen of Bohemia to Lady Apsley of
Thakeham, and Lady Morton 4
Letter from Lady Apsley to Queen of Bohemia ... 6
Letter from the Queen of Bohemia to Lady Apsley ... 7
Letter from the Queen of Bohemia to Lady Apsley ... 8
Letter from Prince Henry to Lady Morton 9
Letter from Prince Rupert to Lady Apsley 9
Letter from the Queen of Bohemia to Sir A. Morton 9
Letter from the Queen of Bohemia to Lady Morton 10
Letter from Lady Dorset ... ... ... ... ... 11
Letter from Lady Apsley to Sir Charles Mountigue ... 11
Apsleys of Old Place 12
V.
INDEX, continued.
Portrait by Zuchero
Extracts from " Memoirs of Colonel Hutchinson,
his Widow
by
Sir Allen Apsley, sen
Lucy St. John, Lady Apsley
Extracts from " Foster's Life of Sir John Ehot "
Extracts from Mem. of Col. Hutchinson
Courtship of Lucy Apsley by Col. John Hutchinson
Marriage of Lucy Apsley and Col. John Hutchinson
Supposed Portrait of Lady Apsley
Siege of Barnstaple
Col. Hutchinson signs Warrant for Charles I
Execution
The Restoration
Death of Col. Hutchinson
Sir Allen Apsley, junior
Letter from Princess Anne to Lady Apsley, 1679
Death of Sir Allen Apsley, junior
Sir Peter Apsley
INDEX, continued.
HISTORY OF THE BATHURST FAMILY.
PAGE
Origin 42
Lancelot Bathurst, builder of Franks 42
Dean Bathurst 43
Sir Benjamin Bathurst 46
Portrait of Queen Mary ... 46
Letter from Princess Mary to Lady Bathurst 47
Letter from Queen Anne to Sir B. Bathurst 50
Letter from Queen Anne to Sir B. Bathurst 50
Letter from Queen Anne to Sir B. Bathurst 51
Letter from Queen Anne to Sir B. Bathurst 53
Sir Benjamin's descendants 55
Allen, ist Earl Bathurst 56
Marriage to Catherine Apsley 56
Letter from Queen Anne to Lady Bathurst 58
Queen Anne's Visit to Cirencester 60
Letter from Bishop Atterbury to Pope 63
Lord Bathurst's Defence of Bishop Atterbury 64
Pope's Letters 6^
INDEX, continued.
Pope's Dedication to Lord Bathurst
Letter from Dr. Arbuthnot to Pope
Letter from Lord Bathurst to Dean Swift
Sterne's Account of Allen, Lord Bathurst
Speech by Burke
Benjamin Bathurst ...
Henry, 2nd Earl Bathurst
Trial of Miss Blandy
Becomes Lord Chancellor...
Trial of the Duchess of Kingston
Lord G. Gordon's Riots ...
Character
Marriage
Death
Apsley House
Henry, 3rd Earl Bathurst
Mem. with reference to the Bag of the Great
PAGE
70
71
71
72
11>
75
75
76
n
78
82
87
87
87
Seal
Yl'l,
HISTORY OF THE APSLEY
FAMILY.
The annexed Pedigree of the Apsleys is taken from Berrfs
Sussex Genealogies^ and from the Sussex Ai'dicco-
Pedigree. logical Collections, Vol. IV. The Genealogies in
these two books agree together, with one or two
exceptions. The one in the Sussex Archce.ology is taken from
the Visitation of Sussex, 1633-4; ffarl. AfSS., 1076, 1562,
1664. Berry takes the earlier part — down to the Apsley who
was Esquire to Edward IV. — from a deed of the 17th
Edward IV., presented at the Office of Arms. Dates and
details have been added from scattered notices in the Sussex
Archceology, and from Colonel Hutcliinsoiis Memoirs by his
Widow (Lucy Apsley), &:c., &:c.
The family of Apsley derived their name in very early times
from the lands of Apsley, in the parish of
Apsleys Thakeham, near Pulborough, in Sussex. The
._ p name is still preserved in Apsley Farm. The
elder branch of the family lived at Thakeham
Place, which became their property by the marriage of Stephen
Apsley with Mary or Margaret Le Power, daughter and co-
heiress of Stephen Le Power. This Stephen Le Power died in
1352; an ancestor of his of the same name held land in
Thakeham in 1242. A chantry was founded by a Stephen
Le Power in Thakeham Church, " to celebrate divine service
for the good estate of the King and his children, and of
Stephen and Isabella, his wife and their children when living,
and for their souls afterwards.'' Thakeham Place is now
entirely destroyed.
HISTORY OF THE APSLEY FAMILY.
We next hear of the Apsleys in 1450 or 1451, when
another John Apsley joined the Rebellion of
Rebellion j.^^,!- Cade, who claimed the throne from
Henry YL, under the assumed name of John
Mortimer, a descendant of Edward III., who
had, in fact, been executed about 25 years before. Cade
marched to London, and was defeated there, and was ultimately
killed while trying to hide himself in Sussex. A pardon was
granted by Henry VI. to all his followers, with the exception of a
few ringleaders, who were tried and executed. The name of
John Apsley, jun., of Steyning, is in the list of pardons.
Steyning is a few miles from Thakeham. There is so little
variety in Christian names that it is difficult to say whether
this was a youthful escapade of the John Apsley, who was the
immediate ancestor of the Thakeham and Pulborough branches
of the family, or if it was another member of the family.
After this, the family divided into two great branches. The
elder brother is described in the Si/ssex Arc/ia'ology
Elder ^g Richard Apsley, of Thakeham, " Esquire of the
Branch of ^. ^^ Queen Elizabeth," and in Berrvs
A.ds1gvs j ^
Genealogies as John Apsley, of Thakeham,
"Esquire of the body to Edward IV." As regards the name.
Berry has been followed, as he professes to derive his informa-
tion from a deed of the period. The Queen Elizabeth would
be Elizabeth Woodville, wife of Edward IV. Beatrix Knotsford
or Knutsford, who was one of the maids of honour of the
Queen of England, was probably attached to the same court as
her husband. She is buried at Thakeham Church, but it is
difficult to identify her husband among the other Apsley tombs
in the church. Her son, William Apsley, is buried there ; and
his wife, Jane Ashburnham, who afterwards married Richard
Covert, of Slaugham Place, Sussex — now a picturesque ruin —
2
HISTORY OF THE APSLEY FAMILY.
is buried with her second husband in Slaugham Church, where
their effigies are still to be seen.
The next in succession, another John Apsley, was wise in
his generation, and no doubt much increased his
John fortune by becoming an ironmaster, after the
ps ey s custom of the Sussex gendemen of his day. In
Ironworks.
1576 he bought land at Shipley, a few miles from
Thakeham, and established iron works there. It seems that he
was successful in his new business, although he must have taken
to it late in life. His mother's family, the Ashburnhams, were
also noted ironmasters. In the Sussex Arduwlogy there are
engravings of two fire-backs, embossed with the names of the
persons for whom they were made, and marked with the
initials, " I. A. " (John Apsley), and a number of small shields
with a fleur-de-lis on each, surrounded by a crown, with the
date of 1582. It has been observed W\2i\. fleurs-de-lis, either
large or small, are very common in Sussex ironwork, and an
attempt has been made to explain this by the possible presence
of French workmen at the furnaces ; but this seems a far-
fetched suggestion, as there is no evidence that there were any
French workmen in the county, and if there had been it is not
likely that they would be allowed to use their national emblem
on English work. The fact oi fleurs-de-lis being on the fire-
backs marked " I. A.," suggests that the Apsleys, who were
evidently eminent ironmasters, should have made use of part of
their own crest as their trade-mark. It is not unlikely that the
fire-back in the library of Cirencester House, with three fleurs-
de-lis on it, and the date of 1629, is of Sussex iron, made,
perhaps, at the Shipley Ironworks, for the Apsleys of Old Place.
Its presence at Cirencester would be easily accounted for, as
Old Place ultimately became the property of the second Sir
Allen Apsley, and we may suppose that the furniture descended
3
HISTORY OF THE APSLEY FAMILY.
Connection
between
Apsleys
and
Bathursts
through
the
Randolphs.
to his heirs, the Bathursts, and found its way to Cirencester,
including the fire-back and the portrait of the first Sir Allen's
mother, by Zuchero. In the present century there were some
andirons at Apsley House, marked with the initials, " I. A."
This John Apsley's second son, Anthony, married Judith
Randolph, whose aunt, another Judith Randolph,
was the wife of Lancelott Bathurst, Alderman of
London, and builder of Franks, the grand-
parents of Sir Benjamin Bathurst. We may
suppose that Mrs. Anthony Apsley was the cause
of an acquaintance between the Apsleys and
Bathursts in London, which, in another generation,
resulted in the marriage of Sir Benjamin Bathurst
and Frances Apsley. Relationships and even distant connections
were kept up at that time far more than in the present day.
In the Sussex Archceological Collections (4th vol.), there are
many interesting letters from Queen Elizabeth of
Bohemia, the daughter of James I., to Lady
Apsley (Eliza Elmes)^ wife of Sir Edward Apsley,
and to her daughter Elizabeth, who was one of
the Queen of Bohemia's ladies, and afterwards
married Sir Albertus Morton, Secretary of State
to James I., and English Ambassador at the
Hague, where she was living with the exiled
Queen. We do not know whether she left
England with the Princess Elizabeth, on her
marriage to Frederick Elector Palatine, in 161 3, or joined her
afterwards in the beautiful Casde of Heidelberg, which was the
residence of the Counts of the Rhine Palatinate. This
Princess, unfortunately, was not content with her charming
palace. Her mother, Queen Anne of Denmark, had originally
intended her to marry the King of Spain, and when that scheme
4
Letters of
Clueen of
Bohemia
to Lady
Apsley
of
Thakeham
and Lady
Morton.
HISTORY OP THE APSLEY FAMILY.
fell through, and the far less brilliant marriage with the Elector
Palatine was arranged, she used to laugh at her daughter and
call her " Goodwife " and " Mistress Palsgrave." These jests,
no doubt, rankled in the Electress's mind, and when her dull
and weak husband was offered the crown of Bohemia by the
Protestants of that country, in opposition to the Catholic King,
the Emperor Ferdinand II. of Germany, she saw an opportunity
of becoming Queen, and persuaded him to accept it, however
little suited he was to be the champion of Protestantism, and
to shake the power of the Emperor of Germany. He shed
tears when he signed his acceptance of the throne, but she
attained her wish, and was crowned at Prague with her husband,
who was afterwards called the Winter King, because he was
crowned in one winter and fled the next. Sir Albertus Morton
was present at this Coronation in November, 1619, and no
doubt had his first sight of his future wife on that occasion.
After this, the troubles of the Bohemian King and Queen soon
began, and Elizabeth Apsley must have spent much of the
following year shut up in the Fortress of Prague, from which
the royal party escaped with much danger and difficulty, after a
disastrous battle, in which Frederick's army was completely
routed by the Emperor, Nov. 20th, 1620. Their subsequent
life at the Hague was spent quietly enough among the numerous
and increasing royal family. Of this family, the twelfth child,
Sophia, afterwards became heiress to the English crown. The
following letter, written by Lady Apsley to the Queen of
Bohemia, is dated by the mention of the birth of the Queen's
fourth son, Prince Maurice, who afterwards fought in the Civil
Wars of England in defence of his uncle, Charles I. It must
therefore have been written February 7th, 1621, three months
after the Battle of Prague, when, no doubt, Lady Apsley was
extremely anxious to get her daughter safe home, after the
5
HISTORY OF THE APSLEY FAMILY.
terrible experiences she had gone through during the hurried
flight from Prague, in the depth of winter, and the subsequent
wanderings of her royal mistress.
" Most gracious Quene, — Your acostemed fafiorable hearin
makes me presum thus farre to relate my joye in
Letter hearing of your sauef delivery of a fourth sonn,
from which God bles with the rest ; among so many
Laay reports to the contrary, and your great journey,
f^ f wherby you see Godes blesed providence to be
Bohemia ^^® safest keper, both to gret and small, and all :
though it plesed not God to give your worthy
king the first victoary, I hope in Godes great mercyes he will
the last, to his comfort and the good of his church : and nowe
it hath plesed God to make your maigesty a mother of so
many swet children, and som of them nowe so far from you,
I presum most humbly to entreat you will be plesed to thinke
of an old womones afection to your old servant, howes ritourn
for England I hartly wish, when your maigesty is plesed to
part with her ; and thus, with her that hath hithertowe desirede
my desier herein, to your best liking, which I shall desier to
here of. I most humbly take my leve, beseching God his
blesed providence may ever be on you and youres, and rest
your maigestyes to be commanded.
Febrary Vllth. Elizabeth Apsley."
The next letter, though without date or direction, appears
to have been written at the Hague, in 162 1, to Lady Apsley.
The "Schonberg" alluded to was, no doubt, the widow of the
Count de Schonberg, who had been the Elector's ambassador
to James I., to negotiate his marriage with the Princess
Elizabeth, which led to his own marriage with Anne, daughter
of Baron Dudley, which he only survived a year.
6
HISTORY OF THE APSLEY FAMILY.
"Good Madame, — I thank you verie much for your last,
which I receaved being in the High Palatinat,
Letter which I could not answeare by reasone of my
of the travelling up and doune till my comming hither :
Q,ueen oi ^^^ diferance you writ of betweene Schonberg
, ^ , and your daughter is true, but I assure you that
to Lady ■' , ^ ^ , ,
. I Apsley gave no such cause of ofence as needed
to have been taken so hainously, having onely
defended her right ; as for me it did not trouble me much,
because I was resolved not lett Apsley have no wrong, nor
will suffer it as long as I live, although I love Schonberg verie
w^ell, yett (if) she does ill, she is not to be excused no more
than anie other ; as for your daughter, I should be verie loth to
lett her goe, she serves me so faithfuUie and willinglie as I trust
none so much as shee, and I will ever do for her as much as I
can ; I hope one day to bring her and my self to you in to
England, then you shall see how much she is mended, for she
is now a little broader than she is long, and speaks French so
well as she will make one forsweare that toung to heare her,
her nose will be in time a little longer, for my little one doth
pull hard at it ; as for Dutch Bess, Sudly caries it, mouth and
all, but neare a count will byte yet, although wee would faine
have them. I am sure Thom. Lewinstons wif tell you manie
newes, but doe not trust her, for a matter that I know; it will be
to long for me to tell it you, but I have tolde your daughter. I
end. desiring you to beleeve that will ever be as I am.
Your constant friend,
Elizabeth."
The following is directed "To the Ladie Apsley," and on
the green silk which fastened it, there still remain two im-
pressions of the Queen's seal, most beautifully cut, and though
7
HISTORY OF THE APSLEY FAMILY.
not larger than a fourpenny piece, exhibiting distinctly the
numerous quarterings of her husband's arms and her own.
" Good Madame, — I give you manie thankes for your kinde
letter to me and tokens to my children ; you have
Letter putt yourself to too much paynes about them, for
01 tne J assure you without that, you nor your daughter,
.„ , . my deare servant, shoulde never be forgotten by
Bohemia ^ & /
to Ladv "^' ^"^ those tokens they shall ever keep for both
Apslev. your sakes. I am verie well content that your
daughter, my Ladie Butler, shall keep my picture,
it cannot be in a better place. I pray commend me both to
her and him, whom I verie well remember heere. I shall ever
be readie to (do) them all the good I can, both for your dear
daughters sake and yours to whom I ame ever,
Your true affectionate frend,
Elizabeth.
I pray weare this small token for my sake, which is to
assure you of my constant love.
The Hagh, this 2d of August."
The two following letters are from the two young princes,
both written in schoolboy's hands, and apparently as thanks for
the " tokens " alluded to in the pi-eceding letter. Being written
after Lady Morton's return to England, they were all probably
a few years later in date. Prince Frederick Henry, the eldest
son (born 1614), was a youth at this time, and was drowned at
Harlaem, in 1629, in his fifteenth year. The well-known
Prince Rupert, who took so conspicuous a part in the English
Civil Wars, was the third son, born 161 9, and at this time
could write but imperfectly, using ruled lines to help him. The
same small seal was used by both, displaying two pipes within
chaplets interlaced.
HISTORY OF THE APSLEY FAMILY.
Letter
from
Pr. Henry
to Lady
Morton.
Letter
from
Pr. Rupert
to Lady
Apsley.
Madame, — By this I will onely give you thankes for your
last letter, for captain who now caleth upon me
and hath promised to see this delivered to your
handes, maketh such haste away, that I can only
wish you health and comfort, and to rest assured
that I am
Your most affectionate frend,
Frederick Henry.
(Direction outside) ' To my Lady Morton.' "
" Madame, — I could not suffer this yo"" servant to depart
from hence, without returneing my hartie thankes
for the kinde tokens of your love, and my Ladie
Morton's affection towards mee, assuring you
that I shall not [hole in MS.] her memorie and
remaine
Yo very affectionate frend,
Rupert.
(Direction outside) ' To the Lady Apseley.' "
The next letter retains an impression of the royal arms on
yellow silk, and is addressed outside, " To Sir Albert Morton."
" My honest Morton, though I have little to say to you yett
I must write to you by this gentleman ; you shall
know by him how the Palatinat growes worse and
worse, and when it is at the worst I hope God will
mend it. I see by your sweethartes letter that you
are still my honest Morton, and assure yourself
that I am ever
Your most constant frend
Elizabeth.
I pray commend me to Nethersole and bid him gett his
dispatch as soon as he can.
The Hagh, this W of May."
9 C
Letter
from
dueen of
Bohemia
to Sir A.
Morton.
HISTORY OF THE APSLEY FAMILY.
The familiarity with the wife of her "honest Morton " is
curiously shewn in the next letter, by the Queen having erased
the word "lady" as too formal an address; and though directed
externally "To the ladie Morton," and sealed with the royal
arms, she calls her " deare Apsley," by which name she had first
known her in her service. The letter seems to refer to the
rejection of a suitor for one of the family.
" Deare Lady [erased] Morton, I did receave your letter
ame glad you are so well recovered of your sick-
Letter ness for I woulde (not) have your wish of dying
from come to you, I love you (too) well to be willing to
lose you ; if you can gett anything by my help I
Queen of , , ^ . ^ .. ^ ... . .
T, , . am glad of it, for trueiie I will ever doe for you
Bohemia ^ ' ^
to Ladv '"^^ ^ ^^" ' ^'^^ ^°^ "^^ answere you give me con-
Morton, cerning Ned Harwood, it is a verie good one, you
could not have made a better, for though he be a
very honest man, yett I doe not think him good enough for you :
what I writt was at his request, as you saw by the letter I sent
you, and now there is an end of it ; the King beeing by when
I write this commends his love to you, and so doe I to your
good mother ; Liddal goeth away in so weak hart I cannot say
no more, by the next you shall have a longer letter ; in the
meane I ame ever, deare Apsley,
Your true constant frend
Elizabeth.
The Hagh, this yV of November."
These Apsley letters are in the hands of the Mabbott
family, who are descendants of Sir Edward Apsley through
females. Lady Apsley, when she left the residence of her
widowhood at Worminghurst (not far from Thakeham), to stay
in London, lodged at a tailor's in Shoe Lane, and many of her
letters are addressed, "To the right worshipful and worthy
10
HISTORY OF THE APSLEY FAMILY.
lady, the Lady Elizabeth Apsley, these. Deliver this letter to
Mr. John Carter, taylour, in Shoe Lane, hard by the ' Beare
and Dog.' "
The following is from the Countess of Dorset : —
" To my assured good Cossen, the Ladey Appsley, this —
" Good Cossen, — I pray youe sende mee the leter
Letter vvhich my lord writ to you about the mach bee-
twene Matte and my cossen Ane. Of my fath
Dorset ^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^^ them safiey returned, ether to
morroe or nexte day. I have sente you a gone of
mine, though it be but a verey baddon, yet I knoe my cossen
will were it for my sake, to whether of your daughtres you will
bee stoe it upone, I shall bee well plesed. These in hast, I
rest your most assured frind and cossen,
Anne Dorset."
The following refers to a contemplated marriage for Colonel
Edward Apsley. There is, however, no record that he ever
married. The seal to this, and many other letters of Lady
Apsley, shows the Apsley crest — a fleur-de-lis or, between two
wings, argent.
(Address outside) — "To hir honored and much respected
frend. Sir Charles Mountigue, give this."
Letter " Honored Sir, — Your former fafoures and
from Lady now ancent aquentance makes me thus troublsom,
Apsley to ^g jjy j|-jgg ijj^gg |. Q (J g J j g J- ^ Q^^^ Vv!\^ fourdrauce in
,, ^. a buisenes bet wen the Lady Wilde and me, beginin
Mountigue . . ^ ^
by the minister in her houses report, hath bine
such, as I desier a proceding with her in a mach between her
eldest daughter and my sonn : as I shall fourder relat to you
at my coming over, and for the stert, this biarer, if your lisiuir
will serve, can justly relate unto you, and douting to be trouble-
II
HISTORY OF THE APSLEY FAMILY.
som, with my best remembrance to your selfe and lady, I take
my lieif, commiting you and ous all to Godes biased proviedence
and rest,
" Your afectionat frende,
November the first." Elizabeth Apsley.
Edward Apsley took the side of the Commonwealth in the
Civil Wars, and became a Colonel in the Parliamentary army.
When the Royalist gentlemen were condemned, in 1643, to
lose their estates, Colonel Apsley was appointed one of the
Sequestrators for Sussex, to carry out this order. Most of the
Royalists were allowed to compound for their estates, and
" Allen Apsley, of London," compounded for his estate for
;!^434 8s. This must have been the second Sir Allen, and
shows that the Pulborough estate had come into his possession
by that time. Colonel Apsley was in command of the garrison
at Arundel Castle, when it was taken, or rather re-taken, by the
Royalists, in 1643, after a three days' siege. He was blamed
for letting it go so easily, and was for some time much out of
favour with his own party.
The younger branch of the Apsleys lived at Old Place,
Pulborough, which came into their possession
through the marriage of William Apsley with
Old Place ^^^^ Mille, who inherited Old Place from her
brother. Old Place dates from Henry VI. 's reign,
and was probably built by Ann Mille's father or grandfather.
Part of the house still e>:ists. It was built round a court-yard,
and, judging by a wood-cut in the History of Sussex, was of
stone up to the first floor, and above that, of beams filled in
with plaster, according to the usual style of Sussex architecture.
The roof is thatched, but this may be a late innovation. A
neighbouring barn is said to be of the date of Edward I., and
from this and the name of Old Place, one may suppose the
12
HISTORY OF THE APSLEY FAISIILY.
house was built on the site of a much older one. There is an
escutcheon over an arched way leading into a garden, with the
arms of Apsley, with a crescent as a mark of the younger house,
and quartered with the arms of Power, Sydney, and Dawtrey,
also the initials and date, " I. A., 1569" (John Apsley). It is
curious that the arms of the Milles should not have been
quartered with the others. There is a tradition that Queen
Elizabeth passed under this gateway, on her return from a visit
to Cowdray House, in August, 1591.
John Apsley, the second in succession to the heiress of the
Milles', married Elizabeth Shelley, of Worming-
I'ortrait hurst, a near neighbour to his cousins at Thakeham.
Zuchero ^ comparison of dates leads us to believe that
it is this lady whose portrait by Zuchero is at
Cirencester House. Zuchero was only in England from 1574
to 1586, so that it must have been painted within that period.
It is impossible that it can be either of the first Sir Allen's
wives, as Sir Allen did not marry for more than 10 years after
Zuchero left England. This Mrs, Apsley (Madam Apsley she
was probably called in her own time), was the mother of seven
sons and three daughters.
Mrs. Hutchinson (Lucy Apsley) was a daughter of the
first Sir Allen Apsley, and the author of Colonel
Extracts Hutchinson^ s Memoirs by his Widoiu, in the course
from of which she gives an account of her own family,
memoirs from which the following is extracted : —
of Colonel
Hutchinson " ^^^ grandfather, by the father's side, was a
■by his gentleman of a competent estate, about ;^7oo or
Widow. ^800 a yeare, in Sussex. He being descended of
a younger house, had his residence at a place
called Pulborough ; the famely out of which he came was an
13
HISTORY OF THE APSLEY FAMILY.
Apsley, of Apsley, a towne where they had bene seated before
the Conquest, and ever since continued, till of late the last heire
male of that eldest house, being the sonne of Sir Edward
Apsley, died without issue, and his estate went with his sisters
daughters into other famelies. — [The town of Apsley existed
only in Mrs. Hutchinson's imagination. She omits all mention
of Thakeham Place, which was in fact the home of the elder
branch of the family for 300 years]. — Particularities concerning
my father's kindred or country, I never knew much of, by
reason of my youth at the time of his death, and my education
in farre distant places ; only in generall I have heard that my
grandfather was a man well-reputed and beloved in his country,
and that it had bene such a continued custome for my ancestors
to take wives att home, that there was scarce a famely of any
note in Sussex to which they were not, by inter-marriages,
neerley related. My grandfather had seven sonns, of whom my
father was the youngest ; to the eldest he gave his whole estate,
and to the rest, according to the custome of those times, shght
annuities. The eldest brother married to a gentlewoman of a
good famely, and by her had only one sonne, whose mother
dying, my uncle married himselfe againe to one of his own
maides, and by her had three more sons, whom, with their
mother, my cousin (William Apsley), the sonne of the first wife,
held in such contempt, that a greate while after, dying without
children, he gave his estate of inheritance to my father and
two of my brothers, except about ^100 a yeare to the eldest
■of his halfe brothers, and annuities of ;£t,o a piece to the
three for their lives. He died before I was borne, but I
have heard very honourable mention of him in our famely.
The rest of my father's brothers went into the warres in Ireland
and the Low Countries, and there remain'd none of them, nor
their issues, when I was born.
14
HISTORY OF THE APSLEY FAMILY.
" My father, att the death of my grandfather, being but a
youth at schole — [this is a mistake ; he was 25
Sir Allen years of age] — had not patience to stay the
sen perfecting of his studies, but putt himselfe into
present action, sold his annuitie, bought himselfe
good clothes, put some money in his purse, and came to
London ; and by meanes of a relation at court, got a place at
the court of Queene Elizabeth, where he behav'd himselfe, so
that he won the love of many of the court, but being young,
tooke an affection to gaming, and spent most of the money he
had in his purse. About that time, the Earl of Essex was
setting forth for Cales voyage — [an expedition to Cadiz, in
1596] — and my father, that had a mind to quitt his idle court
life, procur'd an appointment from the victualler of the Navie,
to go allong with that fleete. In which voyage he demean'd
himselfe with so much courage and prudence, that after his
returne he was honor'd with a very noble and profitable em-
ployment in Ireland. There a rich widow, that had many
children, cast her affections upon him, and he married her ;
but she not living many yeares with him, after her death he
distributed all her estate among her children, for whom he ever
preserv'd a fatherly kindnesse, and some of her grandchildren
were brought up in his house after I was borne. He, by God's
blessing, and his fidellity and industry, growing in estate and
honour, receiv'd a knighthood from King James, soone after
his coming to the crowne, for some eminent service done to him
in Ireland, which having only heard in my childhood, I cannot
perfectly sett downe.— [He held the office of Victualler of Mun-
ster, and was knighted at Dublin, June 5th, 1605.] — After that,
growing into a familiarity with Sr. George Carew, made now by
the King, Earl of Totnesse, a niece of this earl's, the daughter
9f Sr. Peter Carew, who lived a young widow in her uncle's
15
HISTORY OF THE APSLEY FAMILY,
house, fell in love with him, which her uncle perceiving, pro-
cur'd a marriage betweene them. She had divers children by
my father, but only two of them, a sonne and daughter, surviv'd
her, who died whilst my father was absent from her in Ireland.
He led, all the time of his widowhood, a very disconsolate life,
carefull for nothing in the world but to educate and advance the
Sonne and daughter, the deare pledges she had left him, for
whose sake he quitted himselfe of his employments abroad, and
procur'd himselfe the office of Victualler of the Navie [in 1610],
a place then both of credit and greate revenue. His friends,
considering his solitude, had procur'd him a match of a very
rich widdow, who was a lady of as much discretion as wealth ;
Lucy ^^^ while he was upon this designe, he chanc'd to
St. John, see my mother at the house of Sir William St.
Lady John, who had married her eldest sister ; and
Apsley. though he went on his iourney, yett something in
her person and behaviour he carried allong with him, which
would not let him accomplish it, but brought him back to my
mother. She was of a noble famely, being the youngest daugh-
ter of Sr. John St. John, of Lidiar Tregoz, in the county
of Wiltz ; her father and mother died when she was not above
five yeares of age, and yet at her nurse's, from whence she was
carried to be brought up in the house of Lord Grandison, her
father's younger brother; an honorable and excellent person,
but married to a lady so iealous of him, and so ill-natured in
her iealous fitts to anything that was related to him, that her
cruelties to my mother exceeded the stories of stepmothers.
The rest of my aunts, my mother's sisters, were disperst to
several! places, where they grew up till my uncle Sr. John St.
John, being married to the daughter of Sr. Thomas Laten, they
were all brought home to their brother's house. There were
not in those days so many beautifull women found in any famely
16
HISTORY OF THE APSLEY FAMILY.
as these, but my mother was by the most iudgments preferr'd
before all her elder sisters, who, something envious att it, us'd
her unkindly. Yett all the suitors that came to them still turned
their addresses to her, which she in her youthful innocency
neglected, till one of greater name, estate and reputation than
the rest, hapned to fall deeply in love with her, and to manage
it so discretely that my mother could not but entertaine him.
My uncle's wife, who had a mother's kindnesse for her, per-
swaded her to remove herself from her sisters' envie, by going
along with her to the Isle of Jernsey where her father was
governor, which she did, and there went into the towne, and
boarded in a French minister's house, to learn the language,
that minister having bene, by the persecution in France, driven
to seeke his shelter there. Contracting a deare friendship with
this holy man and his wife, she was instructed in their Geneva
discipline, which she liked so much better than our more
superstitious service, that she could have bene consented to
have lived there, had not a powerfull passion in her heart drawn
her back. But at her returne she met with many afflictions ;
the gentleman who had professt so much love to her, in her
absence had bene by most vile practises and treacheries, drawne
out of his senses, and into the marriage of a person whom,
when he recover'd his reason, he hated. But that serv'd only
to augment his misfortune, and the circumstances of that story
not being necessary to be here inserted, I shall only adde that
my mother liv'd in my uncle's house, secretly discontented at
this accident, but was comforted by the kindnesse of my uncle's
wife, who had contracted such an intimate friendship with her,
that they seemed to have but one soule. iVnd in this kindnesse
she had some time a great sollace, till some mallicious persons
had wrought some jealousies, which were very groundlesse, in
my uncle concerning his wife ; but his nature being inclinable
17 D
HISTORY OF THE APSLEY FAMILY.
to that passion, which was fomented in him by subtile wicked
persons, and my mother endeavouring to vindicate iniured
innocence, she was herselfe not well treated by my uncle,
whereupon she left his house, with a resolution to withdrawe
herselfe into the island, where the good minister was, and there
to weare out her life in the service of God. While she was
deliberating, and had fixt upon it in her owne thoughts, resolving
it to impart it to none, she was with Sr William St. John, who
had married my aunt, when my father accidentally came in
there, and fell so heartily in love with her, that he perswaded
her to marry him, which she -did [1616], and her melancholly
made her conforme chearfully to that gravity of habitt and
conversation which was becoming the 'wife of such a person,
who was then forty-eight yeares of age, and she not above 16.
The first yeare of their marriage was crown'd with a sonne,
called after my father's name, and borne at East Smithfield in
that house of the king's which belong'd to my father's employ--
ment in the navie. The next yeare [1617] they removed to
the Tower of London, whereof my father was made lieftenant,
and there had two sonns more before me, and 4 daughters and
2 sonns after ; of all which only 3 sons and 2 daughters
surviv'd him att the time of his death, which was in the 63rd
yeare of his age, after he had 3 yeares before languisht of a
consumption that succeeded a feaver which he gott in the
unfortunate voyage to the Isle of Rhee." [An expedition
under the Duke of Buckingham, against Louis XIIL in favour
of the Huguenots, who were besieged in La Rochelle. The
Huguenots refused to admit the English into the town, in
consequence of which they landed on the He de Re, where
they were attacked by Louis XHL in person, and completely
routed. It is said that Buckingham only brought back 2000
men out of the 7000 he had taken with him from England.]
18
HISTORY OF THE APSLEY FAMILY.
Sir Allen x\psley died in the month of May, 1630, and was
buried in the chapel of the Tower, where there is a tablet to
his memory.
Lucy St. John's grandfather was a first cousin of Henry VII,
by the half-blood. They had a common grand-
Relation- mother, Margaret Beauchamp, Baroness Beau-
„, ^ , champ in her own right, who married ist Sir
St. Johns
. Oliver St. John, from whom descend the St. John
HenryVII. f^n^il)') ^i^d 2ndly, John, Duke of Somerset,
great grandson of Edward III., by whom she had
one daughter, Margaret, Countess of Richmond. She was the
mother of Henry VII., who derived his royal descent through
her. Mrs. Hutchinson does not seem to have been aware of
her mother's relationship to the Tudor and Stuart kings and
queens, as she does not mention it.
Sir Allen is said to have bought his office of Lieutenant of
the Tower for ^2,400 ; this was so much the custom of the
time as not to be looked on as discreditable, any more than the
buying of promotion in the army in our own days. It required
considerable influence to obtain such an office.
Mrs. Hutchinson praises her father's virtues highly as
husband, father, and master, and goes on : — " He was a father
to all his prisoners, sweetning with such compassionate kind-
nesse their restraint, that the affliction of a prison was not felt
in his dayes."
This favourable view of his character as a prison-governor
is not shared by the biographer of one of his
Extracts prisoners. In Fosters Life of Sir John Eliot we
,, ^■^ . find the following account of Sir Allen : — " He
Foster's , , . ,
Life of Si - '^^^^ ^'"^ honest plam-spoken man, with no dis-
John Eliot." Position to be harsh or unjust ; but he was a
king's man to the backbone ; his only law was
19
HISTORY OF THE APSLEY FAMILY.
that of obedience to the master he was serving under ; and the
career in naval and military service, which had made him a
disciplinarian, had neither sharpened nor refined his sympathies."
Much interest was often made to obtain interviews with
some of the political prisoners in the Tower, and in some
letters of Sir Allen Apsley to Lord Dorchester (quoted in
Foster's Life of Sir J. Eliot,) he complains that appeals were
made, though without effect, to Lady Apsley and his son (Peter)
to allow the access of friends to Sir John Eliot, Denzil Holies,
and other members of the House of Commons, imprisoned in
the Tower by Charles L's orders, in 1629. Sir Allen was much
distressed at this time by a report that his son Peter had
become a partizan of Eliot and the other parliament prisoners,
and had carried messages for them, and that he was an enemy
of the Duke of Buckingham's party ; which, if it had been
true, would altogether have obstructed the young man's prefer-
ment ; for although the Duke had been assassinated some
months previously, yet "the Duke's party" was synonymous
with the Court or King's party. Sir Allen writes to Lord
Dorchester to beg him to tell the king that the reverse of this
was the truth ; and that had he conceived his son's hear'; to be
so opposite to his Majesty's ways, or disaffectionate to the Duke,
the youth should have been counted illegitimate and as a
bastard, and never a penny been given or left him. As for his
carrying messages for anybody, to Eliot or the others i;'.irectly
or indirectly, if that were so, his father was ready to surfer any
punishment in the world ; but so confident of the contrary was
Sir Allen that if such a thing could be proved he would
willingly render his place at the king's disposal.
" The poore boy is soe afflicted as hee prtestes to God hee
had rayther die instantly then live w*!^ his ma^^s ill oppinion.
Hee is not xxiij'**' : I doe not think that ever hee medled with
20
HISTORY OF THE APSLEY FAMILY.
any thing seryous, his witt lyinge a contrary waye." Sir Allen
accounts for the slander by saying : — " It springes out of this
ground, my sonnes being associat with Mr. Harrie Percie.
They were bredd together at a common scole at Thistellworth,
and afterwards 4 or 5 yeres at the universitie of Oxford. The
Lo Lester (as I take yt) got a burdges place for Mr. Percie,
presming hee would haue runne the same waye as they did that
hated the Duke ; but my sonne being his bedfellowe Pswaded
him the contrary toe his best littell strength and his voyce was
ever for the kinge and agaynst the ennemyes of the Duke, for
w^^ they yet doe not abide Mr. Percie ; my sonne was by Mr.
Alford (one of the faction) offered a burdges place provided
he should have given his voyce against the Duke, w''^^ hee
detested to doe or accept ; my sonne was a contynuall com-
panion w*^^ Mr: Ashbornham and others neere the Duke, and
the Duke himself made mutch of him, soe farr as hee hadd gon
the voyage with him yf his grace had lived, and uppon
Mr. Ashbornham's p'Terment hee indevored to have s'Ved the
Duke in his steede."
In the same year Sir Allen writes to Lord Dorchester to
justify himself from an accusation of the Earl of Clare that he
had put his son, Denzil Holies, who was a prisoner in the
Tower, near to some servants of his own. who were ill of an
infectious disease : — " I heere that the Earle of Clare was
informed (for hee sent to mee) or conceipted that two of my
savants were ded of the spotted feavor, and that some other
sick lodged under his sonne. I thank God I have no on
s'^'vant or other ded, and theon of them that is sick hath ben
in a consumtion this two yeres, and the other a young man
hath ben for above half a yere soe desperately and madly in
love as hee could neither eat nor sleep, and soe fell into a
burning feavor. Some said hee had spotts, others fleabites.
HISTORY OF THE APSLEV FAMILY.
His deere tender harted mrs. sorroinge to bee the death of soe
true a s^'vant visseted hun, fild him with hoapes, and at last
gave him assurance to bee his faythfull wyf, the man revives
and mendes apace ! I writ this (howsoever it may seeme idly)
to th' end that yo^" Lopp may knowe I would not presume to
com unto the Court yf one man had miscarried out of my
house or any sicknes that might bee feared, althoug they lodg
remoat from my house and ever did." The address on one of
these letters is — " The Lo Carlton vicount Dorchester, principall
secretary to his Ma*'*^ at Court. Hast, hast, hast."
To return to Mrs. Hutchinson ; she says : " When through
the ingratitude and vice of that age, many of the
Extracts vvives and chilldren of Queene Elizabeth's glorious
captaines were reduc'd to poverty, his purse was
TTiitf>h'Ti«!nTi their common treasury, and they knew not the
inconvenience of decay'd fortunes till he was
dead : many of these valliant seamen he maintain'd in prison.
[It is to be supposed they were in prison for debt.] Many he
redeem'd out of prison and cherisht with an extraordinary
bounty As he was in love with true honor, so he
contemn'd vaine titles, and though in his youth he accepted an
addition to his birth, in his riper years he refus'd a barondry,
which the king offer'd him. He was severe in the regulating
his famely, especially would not endure the least immodest
behaviour or dresse in any woman under his roofe. There was
nothing he hated more than an insignificant gallant that could
only make his leggs [bow] and prune himselfe and court a
lady, but had not braines to employ himselfe in things more
suteable to man's nobler sex The large estate he
reapt by his happy Industrie he did many times over as freely
resigne againe to the king's service, till he left the greatest part
of itt at his death in the king's hands Sir Walter
HISTORY OF THE APSLEY FAMILY.
Rawleigh and Mr. Ruthin being prisoners in the Tower, and
addicting themselves to chimistrie my mother suffer'd them to
make their rare experiments at her cost, partly to comfort and
divert the poore prisoners, and partly to gaine the knowledge of
their experiments, and the medecines to helpe such poor people
as were not able to seek phisitians. By these means she
acquired a greate deale of skill, which was very profitable to
many all her life. She was not only to these, but to all the
other prisoners that came into that Tower, as a mother. All
the time she dwelt in the Tower, if any were sick, she made
them broths and restoratives with her owne hands, visited and
tooke care of them, and provided them all necessaries ; if any
were aflicted she comforted them, so that they felt not the
inconvenience of a prison who were in that place. She was
not lesse bountifull to many poore widdowes and orphans.
. . . She was a constant frequenter of weekeday lectures,
and a greate lover and encourager of good ministers.
When my father was sick, she was not satisfied with the
attendance of all that were about him, but made herselfe his
nurse and cook and phisitian She died at my
house at Owthorpe, in the county of Nottingham, in the year
1659."
Lady Apsley certainly did not neglect her daughter's
education, for Mrs. Hutchinson says that when she was about
seven years of age she had at one time eight tutors in several
qualities, languages, music, dancing, writing, and needlework.
Amongst other things, she learnt Latin, and was so apt that she
outstripped her brothers, who were at school, although her
father's chaplain, that was her tutor, was " a pitifuU, dull
fellow." Mrs. Hutchinson makes no mention of her mother's
second marriage, yet there is reason to believe there was such a
marriage, which was disapproved of by her son Allen, Sir Allen
23
HISTORY OF THE APSLEY FAMILY.
left many debts, and there are numerous petitions concerning
the financial position of his children, presented to the king and
council between 1634 and 1637, by which it appears that there
were disputes between Lady Apsley and her son, which were
settled in the son's favour. [See Dictionary of National
Biography\. It is from these petitions that Lady Apsley's
second marriage is known, but it is curious that Mrs. Hutchinson
never alludes to her step-father's existence in any way, nor is
his name mentioned on Lady Apsley's tomb. It appears that
she was living at Richmond with her two
Courtship daughters, Lucy and Barbara, about the year
. , y 1637 ; and it was here that the courtship of Lucy
Apsley by i >
PI T_-u^ by Colonel John Hutchinson took place. Mr.
Hutchinson Hutchinson was the eldest son of Sir Thomas
Hutchinson, of Owthorpe, and " the Lady
Margaret," daughter of Sir John Biron, of Newstead (after-
wards the property of his descendant, the poet. Lord Byron).
Mr. Hutchinson had been sent to London to study law at
Lincoln's Inn, " but finding it unpleasant and contrary to his
genius, and the plague that spring driving people out of the
town," he went to Richmond, and " tabled at " the house of
Mr. Coleman, his music-master, for he "played masterly" on
the viol. At Mr. Coleman's boarding-house, Barbara Apsley, a
girl of about 13 years old, also "tabled," for the practice of
her lute, while Lady Apsley and Lucy, then about 18, had gone
into Wiltshire to stay with some of the St. John family. Lady
Apsley's relations, " for the accomplishment of a treaty that
had bene made some progresse in " about the marriage of
Lucy with a gentleman of that country. Mr. Hutchinson had
already broken the heart of a Nottingham young lady, whom
he would not marry because she was of base parentage, "and
his greate hearte could never stoope to thinke of marrying into
24
HISTORY OF THE APSLEY FAMILY.
SO mean a stock ; " but this time he was more inflammable, for
he fell in love with the charming Mrs. Apsley before he had
seen her, from the accounts he heard of her from Barbara and
her friends at Richmond, and also from seeing her Latin books
and a sonnet she had written, in which he fancied " something
of rationality, beyond the reach of a she-wit," and, rather
ungallantly, could scarcely believe it was written by a woman.
Although he was told she shunned the converse of men as the
plague, he set his mind on making her acquaintance. " AVhile
he was exercis'd in this, many days passed not, but a footeboy
of my lady her mother's came to young Mrs. Apsley (Barbara)
as they were at dinner, bringing newes that her mother and
sister would in few dayes return ; and when they inquir'd of
him, whether Mrs. Apsley was married, having before bene
instructed to make them believe it, he smiled, and pull'd out
some bride-laces, which were given at a wedding in the house
where she was, and gave them to the young gentlewoman and
the gentleman's daughter of the house, and told them Mrs.
Apsley bade him tell no news, but give them those tokens, and
carried the matter so that all the companie believ'd she had
been married. Mr. Hutchinson immediately turned pale as
ashes, and felt a fainting to seize his spiritts in that extraordinary
manner that finding himselfe ready to sinke att table, he was
faine to pretend he was ill, and to retire from the table into the
garden The anxiety of mind affected him so, that
it sent him to his bed that afternoone, and having fortified
himselfe with resolution, he gate up the next day ; but yett
could not quitt himself of an extravagant perplexitie of soule
concerning this unknown gentlewoman While she
so ran in his thoughts, meeting the boy againe, he found out,
upon a little stricter examination of him, that she was not
married, and pleas'd himselfe in the hopes of her speedy
25 E
HISTORY OF THE APSLEY FAMILY,
returne ; when one day, having been invited by one of the
ladies of that neighbourhood to a noble treatment [entertain-
ment] at Sion Garden, which a courtier, that was her servant,
had made for her and whom she would bring, Mr. Hutchinson,
Mrs. Apsley and Mr. Coleman's daughter were of the partie,
and having spent the day in severall pleasant divertisements,
att evening when they were att supper, a messenger came to tell
Mrs. Apsley her mother was come. She would immediately
have gone, but Mr. Hutchinson, pretending civillity to conduct
her home, made her stay till the supper was ended, of which
he eate no more, now only longing for that sight which he had
with such perplexity expected. This at length he obtained ;
but his heart, being prepossesst with his ovvne fancy, was not
free to discerne how little there was in her to answer so greate
an expectation. She was not ugly in a carelesse riding habitt,
she had a melancholly negligence both of herseife and others,
as if she neither affected to please others, nor tooke notice of
aniething before her ; yet in spite of all her mdifference, she
was surpriz'd with some unusuall liking in her soule when she
saw this gentleman, who had haire, eies, shape, and countenance
enough to begett love in any one at the first, and these sett of with
a gracefull and generous mine, which promis'd an extraordinary
person. Although he had but an evening sight of her he had
so long desir'd, and that at disadvantage enough for her ; yett
the prevailing sympathie of his soule made him thinke all his
paines well payd, and this first did whett his desire to a second
sight, which he had by accident the next day, and to his icy
found that she was wholly disengag'd from that treaty, which
he so much fear'd had been accomplisht ; he found withall that
though she was modest, she was accostable, and willing to
entertaine his acquaintance."
Six weeks love-making followed, and the marriage was
26
HISTORY OF THE APSLEY FAMILY.
arranged, but " that day that the friends on both
Marriage sides met to conclude the marriage, she fell sick
Detween ^^ ^-^^ small-pox, which was many wayes a greate
- , , triall upon him. First, her life was almost in
Col. John desperate hazard, and then the disease for the
Hutchinson present, made her the most deformed person that
could be sene, for a great while after she recover'd ;
yett he was nothing troubled at it, but married her as soone as
she was able to quit the chamber, when the priest and all that
saw her were affrighted to looke on her ; but God recompenc'd
his iustice and constancy by restoring her, though she was
longer than ordinary before she recover'd On the
third day of July, 1638, he was married to Mrs. Lucy Apsley,
the second daughter of Sr Allen Apsley, late lieftenant of the
Tower of London, at St. Andrew's Church in Holborne. He
liv'd some time in this neighbourhood with her mother,
but the following year they, with Lady Apsley,
remov'd their dwelling out of the city, to a house they took in
Enfield Chace, called the Blew House."
-_ . Barbara Apsley, or Barbary as she is
Marriage 1 /' /
between sometimes called, afterwards married Lieutenant-
Barbara Colonel George Hutchinson, the younger brother
Apsley and of Colonel John Hutchinson, an excellent and
Col.George amiable person, though without his brother's
Hutchinson ^.^ijit^^y talents.
Of Sir Allen Apsley, the younger, we know but little at this
time, but there is reason to think that he married
Supposed i^gfQ^g ji^g Q—i y^^^ broke out in 1642, as it is
^ probable that the full length portrait of a young
Ladv ^^^y "^ ^^"^ satin, at Cirencester House, is a
Apsley. portrait of his wife, Frances Petre. The costume
is of the date of Charles I.'s reign, and is cer-
27
HISTORY OF THE APSLEY FAMILY.
tainly too modern for Lucy, Lady Apsley in her young days ;
while on the other hand it does not correspond to the
costume in the middle of Charles IL's reign, when Sir Peter
Apsley's first wife lived. Sir Allen was 26 when the Civil War
began, and after that people had other things to think of than
having their portraits painted, but he may well have married a
young wife two or three years before this.
Lucy, Lady Apsley, must have had many trials during the
Civil War, for her sons took the side of the king, and her sons-
in-law the side of the Parliament. Yet in spite of their
differences, Sir Allen and his sister Lucy did not lose their
personal affection. On one occasion, indeed, in 1642, Sir
Allen was actually in command of a troop, sent to arrest
Colonel John Hutchinson, at some town in Leicestershire ;
"but he (Colonel Hutchinson) stayed not to see them, but
went out at the other end of the town, as they came in ; " and
Sir Allen amicably established himself in the next house to his
sister. In 1643, Col. Hutchinson was made Governor of
Nottingham Castle by the Parliament, his brother George
being Major and Lieut.-Col. under him, and their wives living
with them. Sir Allen Apsley was at one time Lieutenant-
Governor of Exeter, and afterwards he commanded the
garrison of Barnstaple, which stood a siege from
Siege of the parliamentary troops, and finally surrendered
Barnstaple April 13th, 1646. A letter from Sir Thomas
Fairfax's quarters, published at the time, says,
under the date of March 30th : — " It is generally believed that
Sir Allen Apsley is willing to surrender the town, fort and
castle, but that his desperate brother swears he will cut him to
pieces if he offer to surrender the castle." This brother was
probably Colonel James Apsley, who, in 1651, made an
attempt to assassinate Mr. St. John, then Ambassador of the
28
HISTORY OF THE APSLEY FAMILY.
Commonwealth in Holland. This attempt at assassination is
sometimes erroneously attributed to Sir Allen. Clarendon
mentions another royalist Apsley, with the curious Christian
name of Ball. He was probably a younger brother of Sir
Allen. After the surrender of Barnstaple, Sir Allen found a
refuge with the Hutchinsons at Nottingham, and Colonel
Hutchinson used his influence with the Parliament in his
brother-in-law's favour ; for which good office some of his own
party looked coldly on him. The good understanding between
the two was no doubt the reason why Sir Allen was employed
in the following year to carry letters and messages from
Cromwell to Charles I., in the hope of arranging terms between
them.
Colonel Hutchinson did not shrink from signing the
warrant for Charles I.'s execution. He was a
Colonel member of the Long Parliament, although his
Hutchinson military duties prevented him from sitting for
^^^^^ some time, but he took his seat as soon as he
warrant for , , , , . ^t . ■ ,
p, 1 J , could be spared from Nottmgham. Mrs.
execution Hutchinson thus describes the feelings which led
her husband to his decision with regard to the
execution of the king : — " As for Mr. Hutchinson, although he
was very much confirm'd in his iudgment concerning the cause,
yett herein being call'd to an extraordinary action, whereof
many were of severall minds, he address'd himselfe to God by
prayer ; desiring the Lord that, if through any humane frailty
he were led into any error or false opinion in these greate
transactions, he would open his eies, and not suffer him to
proceed, but that he would confirme his spiritt in the truth, and
lead him by a right-enlightened conscience ; and finding no
check, but a confirmation in his conscience that it was his duty
to act as he did, he, upon serious debate, both privately and in
29
HISTORY OF THE APSLEY FAMILY.
his addresses to God, and in conference with conscientious,
upright, unbiassed persons, proceeded to sign the sentence
against the king. Although he did not then beHeve but that •
it might one day come to be againe disputed among men, yett
both he and others thought they could not refuse it without
giving up the people of God, whom they had led forth and
engaged themselves unto by the oath of God, into the hands
of God's and of their enemies ; and therefore he cast himselfe
upon God's protection, acting according to the dictates of a
conscience which he had sought the Lord to guide, and
accordingly the Lord did signalise his favour afterwards
to him."
In 1650 or 1651,-we find Sir Allen still in trouble about the
surrender of Barnstaple : — ■'' Sr Allen Apsley had articles at
the rendition of Barnstable, whereof he was governor, and
contrary to these he was put to vast expence and horrible
vexation by severall persons, but especially by one wicked
weoman who had the worst and the smoothest tongue that ever
her sex made use of to mischiefe. She was handsome in her
youth, and had very pretty girles to her daughters, whom, when
they grew up, she sacrificed to her revenge and mallice against
Sr Allen Apsley, which was so venomous and devillish, that
she stuck not at inventing false accusations, and hiring
witnesses to swear to them, and a thousand other as enormous
practises. In those dayes there was a committee set up, for
reliefe of such as had any violation of their articles, and of
this Bradshaw was president ; into whose easie faith this
woman, pretending herselfe religious, and of the parliaments
party, had so insinuated herselfe that Sr Allen's way of reliefe
was obstructed. Coll. Hutchinson, labouring mightily in his
protection, and often foyling this vile woman, and bringing to
light her devillish practices, turned the woman's spite into as
30
HISTORY OF THE APSLEY FAMILY.
violent a tumult against himselfe ; and Bradshaw was so hott
in abetting her, that he grew coole in his kindnesse to the
coUonell, yet broke it not ciuite : but the coUonell was very
much griev'd that a friend should engage in so uniust an
opposition. At last it was manifest how much they were
mistaken that would have assisted this woman upon a score of
being on the parliament's side, for she was all this while a spie
for the king, and after his returne, Sr Allen Apsley met her in
the king's chamber waiting for recompense for that service.
The thing she sued Sir Allen Apsley for, was for a house of
hers in the garrison of Barnstable, which was puU'd down to
fortifie the town for the king, before he was governor of the
place. Yett would she have had his articles violated to make
her a recompense out of his estate, treble and more than the
value of the house ; pretending she was of the parliament's
party, and that Sr Allen, in mallice thereunto, had without
necessity pull'd downe her house. All which were horrible
lies, but so malliciously and so wickedly afifirm'd and sworne by
her mercenary witnesses that they at first found faith and it
was hard for truth afterwards to overcome that prepossession.
The coUonell, prosecuting the defence of truth and iustice in
these and many more things, .... displeas'd many of
his owne party."
Ten years later, at the Restoration, Sir Allen and Colonel
Hutchinson exchanged their roles. Colonel
The Hutchinson was in danger of his life as a regicide.
Restoration and Sir Allen returned his brother-in-law's former
good offices, by doing his utmost to procure his
safety. " Sir Allen Apsley, who, with all the kindest zeale of
friendship that can be imagin'd, endeavour'd to bring off the
coUonell, us'd some artifice in engaging friends for him. There
was a young gentleman, a kinsman of his, who thirstily aspir'd
3^
HISTORY OF THE APSLEY FAMILY.
after preferrment, and Sir Allen had given him hopes, upon his
eifectuall endeavours for the coUonell, to introduce him ; who
being a person that had understanding enough, made no
conscience of truth, when an officious lie might serve his turne.
This man, although he ow'd his life to the collonell, and had
a thousand obligations to Mrs. Hutchinson's parents, yet not
for their sakes, nor for virtue, nor for gratitude, but for his owne
hopes, which he had of Sr Allen Apsley, told some of the
leading men among the court party, that it was the king's
desire to have favour shewne to the collonell." Col. Hutchinson
thought it wiser to " retire to a remoter lodging from
Westminster, and lay very private in the towne, not comming
into any companie of one sort or other, waiting till the act of
oblivion were perfected, to goe downe againe into the countrie.
. . . . Although the collonell was clear'd both for life and
estate, in the House of Commons, yet he not answering the
court expectations in publick recantations and dissembled
repentance and applause of their cruelty to his fellows, the
Chancellor [Clarendon] was cruelly exasperated against him,
and there were very high endeavours to have rac'd him out of
the act of oblivion. But then Sr Allen Apsley sollicited all his
friends, as it had bene for his owne life, and divers honorable
persons drew up a certificate, with all the advantage they could,
to procure him favour ; who in all things that were not against
the interest of the state had ever pitied and protected them in
their distresses. The Countess of Rochester writ a very
effectuall letter to the Earl of Manchester The
letter was read in the House, and Sr Allen Apsley's candidate
for preferrement againe made no conscience of deceiving
several lords, that the preserving of the collonell would be
acceptable to the king and the chancellor, who he now knew,
hated his life. Many lords alsoe of the coUonell's relations
52
HISTORY OF THE APSLEY FAMILY.
and acquaintance, out of kindnesse and gratitude (for there
was not one of them whom he had not in his day more or less
obhg'd) us'd very hearty endeavours for him. Yett Sr Allen
Apsley's interest and most fervent endeavours for him was that
which only turn'd the scales, and the coUonell was not excepted
in the act of oblivion to aniething but offices ; " that is, he was
forbidden to hold any office, civil or military.
Colonel Hutchinson owed his escape in part to a petition
sent in his name, within a week of Charles II. 's return, to the
Speaker of the House of Commons, expressing deep contrition
for his conduct. This petition was in fact written by Mrs.
Hutchinson, and signed with her husband's name, without his
knowledge. It seems hard to find fault with her for her well-
meant forgery, or for the language she uses, when we consider
that her much-loved husband's life was at stake, but it is not
possible to read the document without regret at the abject tone
of repentance and humiliation. One quotation will show the
spirit in which it is written :—" They who yet remember the
seeming sanctity and subtle arts of those men, who seduced not
only me, but thousands more, in those unhappy days, cannot if
they have any Christian compassion, but join with me in
bewailing my wretched misfortune, to have fallen into their
pernicious snares, when neither my own malice, avarice, or
ambition, but an ill-guided judgment led me. As soon as ever
my eyes were opened to suspect my deceivers, no person with
a more perfect abhorrency detested both the heinous fact and
the authors of it, and I was as willing to hazard my life and
estate to redeem my crime, as I had been unfortunate through
a deplorable mistake to forfeit them by it."
Mrs. Hutchinson loved her husband's person more than his
honour when she could write thus in his name ; but when the
petition was once sent in to the House of Commons, Col.
33 F
HISTORY OF THE APSLEY FAMILY.
Hutchinson could not disown it without placing a halter round
his neck ; unfortunately, he went a step further, and three he
sent a petition to the House of Lords, this time written by
himself, in which, without using such humiliating language, he
still so far debases himself as to speak of his " signal repent-
ance," and to make a " humble and sorrowful acknowledgement
of those crimes whereunto seduced judgment
unfortunately betrayed him. '
Mrs. Hutchinson never saw anything but "an overruling
providence of God " in the means by which her husband was
preserved ; but it was not so with him. When the immediate
danger was over he began to see things in their true light, and
" was not well satisfied with himself for accepting the deliver-
ance." " His wife who thought she had never deserv'd so well
of him, as in the endeavours and labours she exercis'd to bring
him of, never displeas'd him more in her life, and had much
adoe to perswade him to be contented with his deliverance."
The trial and execution of some of the other regicides was a
terrible blow to him ; he felt himself "judged in their judgment
and executed in their execution ;".... " and had
not his wife persuaded him, he had offered himself a voluntary
sacrifice."
As soon as the Act of Oblivion had passed, he retired to
Owthorpe, his house in Northamptonshire ; but he was soon
sent for to London again, and put through a close examination
by the Attorney-General, in the hope of making him give
evidence against some of his former colleagues. But Colonel
Hutchinson would betray no one ; he professed a short memory
and an inability to recognise any handwritings except that of
Cromwell and others whom death had placed beyond the reach
of their enemies. The Attorney-General got so little informa-
tion out of him in his private examination that he did not
34
4U45351
HISTORY OF THE APSLEY FAMILY.
venture to call him as a witness the following day in court.
Colonel Hutchinson was, however, forced to attend the court,
and was made to pass before the prisoners' faces, which " so
provok'd his spiritt, that if he had been call'd to speake, he
was resolv'd to have borne testimony to the cause, and against
the court The attorney made a very mallitious
report of him to the chancellor and the king, insomuch as his
ruine was then determined, and only oppertunity watch'd to
effect it."
Sir Allen Apsley, who was, both before and after the
Restoration, one of the Clarendon's most trusted agents and
friends, appealed to him on this, as on many other occasions,
in favour of Colonel Hutchinson. " The chancellor was in a
great rage and passion, and fell upon him with much vehemence.
' O, Nail,' said he, ' what have you done ? you have sav'd a
man that would be ready, if he had oppertunity, to mischiefe
us as much as ever he did.' Sr Allen was forc'd to stop his
mouth and tell him, that he believ'd his brother a less
dangerous person than those he had brought into the king's
councell."
In 1663, Col. Hutchinson was arrested at Owthorpe, on
the charge of being concerned in a papist conspiracy in York-
shire, by order of the Duke of Buckingham, who made this
an excuse for catching him ; for in a letter written by him to
Lord Newcastle, accompanying the order, he says : — " That
though he could not make it out as yett, he hop'd he should
bring Mr. Hutchinson into the plott." Col. Hutchinson was
taken up to London, and committed to the Tower, under
a warrant signed by Secretary Bennett, afterwards Earl of
Arlington, who shortly after sent for him to his lodgings at
Whitehall, and put him through a close examination ; among
other things he asked him, whether he heard or read the
35
HISTORY OF THE APSLEY FAMILY.
common prayer, and when Col. Hutchinson answered, "To
speak ingenuously, no;" Bennett asked, "How he then did
for his soule's comfort ? " he replied, " Sr, I hope you leave
me that to account betweene God and my owne soule." Col.
Hutchinson was sent back to the Tower, and lodged in the
Bloody Tower. He " was not at all dismay'd, but wonderfully
pleas'd with all these things, and told his wife this captivity
was the happiest release in the world to him, ... for
before, he felt himself oblig'd to sitt still while this king
reign'd, . . . but now he thought this usage had utterly
disoblieg'd him from all ties, . . . and that he was free
to act as prudence should hereafter lead him. . . . He
therefore made it his earnest request to Sr Allen Apsley to
let him stand and fall to his owne innocency, and to under-
take nothing for him, which if he did, he told him he would
disowne."
Sir Allen, nevertheless, did all in his power to get him
released, interceding for him both with Clarendon and the
King, but without effect. Mrs. Hutchinson, meanwhile, under-
went a searching examination at the hands of Sir Henry
Bennett, Secretary of State, with regard to some letters which
had fallen into his hands, and which he supposed to have
been written by her, although in fact they were written by
another lady of the same name. Secretary Bennett had,
apparently, asked Sir Allen Apsley to send him a sj^ecimen
of his sister's handwriting, and Sir Allen sent him a paper
written by Mrs. Hutchinson, saying : — " It is a copy of a
letter written to the House of Commons by her husband :
it may in some measure explain how he escaped then ; if it
were printed, nothing could more lessen his credit amongst
those who continue in rebellious principles, for no man can
express more repentance, or a greater detestation of those ill
36
HISTORY OF THE APSLEY FAMILY.
men." Wishes Hutchinson to know that he keeps the paper
as a testimony against him, should he make the least failing.
After Col. Hutchinson had been in the Tower for more
than six months, Bennett ordered his removal to Sandown
Castle in Kent, where he was imprisoned with great strictness,
and for sometime Mrs. Hutchinson was not allowed access
to him; but at last Sir Alien Apsley "and his lady" obtained
an order from Secretary Bennett to allow him to walk by the
seaside with a keeper, by which means Mrs. Hutchinson
could see him. But either his harsh imprisonment, or a chill
caught by walking on the seashore, brought on
Death of ^ ^^^^^^ ^^^^^^ ^j^j^j^ ^^e could not rally, and he
„ . 1 .' died on the nth of September, 1664, after
Hutcliinsoii . '■ ' t,
eleven months of imprisonment. Mrs. Hutchin-
son was not with him, as she had been obliged to go to
Owthorpe on business ; but his brother George and his
daughter Barbara were present. In his later days he had
become thoroughly convinced of the excellence of " the
Cause, and believed that it would be ultimately triumphant;
and he expressed his intention never to have so much as a.
civil correspondence " with any of the Royalist party again ;
"yet when he mentioned Sir Allen Apsley, he would say, he
would never serve any that would not for his sake serve the
person that had preserv'd him." When he knew himself to
be dying, he told his brother to remember him to Sir Allen
Apsley, and tell him that he hoped God would reward his
labour of love to him.
Sir Allen was certainly an excellent brother and a true
friend ; and he must, at times, have had a
Sir Allen difficult part to play in defending his regicide
. . ^' brother-in-law and remaining loyal to the interests
of his king. He had been educated at Merchant
37
HISTORY OF THE APSLEY FAMILY.
Taylor's School, to which he went in 1626, at ten years of
age, and afterwards at Trinity College, Oxford. In 1679, he
published anonymously a long poem called " Order and
Disorder, or the world made and undone, being Meditations
on the Creation and Fall. As it is recorded in Genesis."
After the Restoration he was rewarded for his devotion to the
king's cause by various offices. In 1660 he was made keeper
of the king's hawks, an office which brought with it a good
salary and many perquisites, but was not enjoyed by him for
many years without curtailment, judging by the following
entry in Pepy's Diary of October 22nd, 1667: — "To Captain
Cocke's to dinner ; where Lord Brouncker and his lady.
Matt. Wren and Bulteale and Sir Allan Apsly ; the last of
whom did make good sport ; he being already fallen under
the retrenchments of the new Committee, as he is Master
Falconer; which makes him mad." In 1662 he was made
Keeper of the North Park at Hampton Court, and the man-
agement of the king's preserves seems to have passed largely
into his hands. He also became Treasurer of the Household
to Charles II., and Receiver or Treasurer to the Duke of
York, in which capacity large sums were entrusted to his
keeping to be applied to the navy, the Duke of York being
Lord High Admiral. He was made a colonel in the army
in 1667, and sat for Thetford from 1661 to 1678.
Lady Apsley and her daughter Frances were on terms of
great intimacy and affection with the Duke of York's two
daughters. Princess Mary and Princess Anne. A letter which
is preserved at Cirencester, from Princess Anne to Lady
Apsley, is the only letter extant of the princess' girlhood.
The circumstances under which it was written require some
explanation. In 1679 the country was set in a flame against
the Roman Catholics by Titus Oates's pretended revelations
38
HISTORY OF THE APSLEY FAMILY.
of a Popish plot against the life of the king. The Duke
of York, though not openly accused, was in great danger
from the excited people on account of ' his religion, so that
it became necessary for him to fly the country and remain
in exile till public opinion had cooled. He retired to a house
in Brussels, which Charles II. had formerly occupied, accom-
panied by the Duchess, Mary Beatrice of Modena. Princess
Anne and her half-sister Princess Isabella, who was only three
years old, went to Brussels in August, 1679, '^o pay their
parents a visit. In the following month, news came to James
that his brother Charles was dangerously ill and had sent
for him, but wished him to come in as private a manner as
possible, to prevent any of the adverse party knowing of his
presence in England. James accordingly set out, followed
by only four attendants, amongst whom was his favourite
Churchill (afterwards Duke of Marlborough), and, disguised
by a black periwig, he arrived in London, where he slept at
the house of Sir Allen Apsley, in St. James' Square. Early
next morning (September 12th) he travelled down to Windsor,
where he arrived at seven in the morning, and found the
king nearly recovered from his late illness. James left
London again September 25th, and reached Brussels October
I St. It was during the absence of her father that Princess
Anne wrote the following letter to Lady Apsley. Princess
Isabella, whom she mentions, died two years later.
" Bruxsells, Sep. ye 20th.
I beg your pardon that I did not writt to you before
since I had a letter from you indeed the only reason was
want of time but I am resolvde I'll make amends and
writt a long one to you if time will permit, Since your first I
receivde one in answere of the [one] I wrott you by S'" Charls
^9
HISTORY OF THE APSLEY FAMILY.
by which I find you weare mightely surprised to see the
Duke, indeed we weare all mightely surprisde
Letter at it heare at first and did not know what
from to think but now I hope in God it will be for
Princess ^^le best and that I shall be so happy to bring
, ^ , the Dutchess over with me but I know not
to Lady
.1 whethere I have any ground for these hopes I
1679. hope I have for I have a good heart thank God
or els it would have bin down long ago. I was
to see a ball at the court in cognito which I likede very well;
it was in very good order, and some danc'd well enought ;
indeed there was Prince Vodenunt that danc'd extreamly
well, as well if not better than ethere the duke of Monmouth
or sir E. Villiers, which I think is very extraordinary. Last
night againe I was to see fyer works and bonfyers which was
to celebrate the king of Spain's weding they were very well
worth seeing indeed. All the people hear are very sivil, and
except you be othere ways to them they will be so to you.
As for the town it is a great fine town. Methinks tho the
streets are not so clean as they are in Holland yet they are
not so dirty as ours ; they are very well paved and very
easy — they onely have od smells. My sister Issabella's lodg-
ings and mine are much better than I expected and so is
all in this place. For our lodging they wear all one great
room, and now are divided with board into severall. My
sister Issabella has a good bed-chamber with a chimney in it;
there is a little hole to put by things, and between her room
and mine there is an indiferent room without a chimney ;
then mine is a good one with a chimney which was made a
purpose for me. I have a closet and a place for my trunks
and ther's a little place where our women dine, and over
that such anothere. I doubt I have quite tirde out your
40
HISTORY OF THE APSLEY FAMILY.
patience so that T will say no more onely beg you to believe
me to be what I realy am and will be your very affectionate
freinde
Anne.
Pray remember me very kindly to Sir Alin."
The princess was only fourteen years of age when she
wrote this letter. The greater part of it is published in
Miss Strickland's Queens of England, vol. xii.
Sir Allen died October 15th, 1683, at his house in St.
James' Square, and was buried in Westminster
Death of Abbey, near the entrance to Henry VIl's.
Chapel. His wife Frances, daughter of Sir
• • John Petre of Bowkay, Devon, survived him
fifteen years, and is buried with him.
They left two children, Peter and Frances. Frances
married Sir Benjamin Bathurst. Peter was made
^^^ Clerk to the Crown in 1667, and was afterwards
Peter
- knighted. He was frequently employed in the
foreign secret service by Charles H. and James
11. He married twice. His first wife, Anne, died September
5th, 1681, and is buried in Westminster Abbey. By her he
had one son, Allen, who died unmarried in .1691, and is
buried with his mother. By his second wife, Fortrey, he
had one daughter, Catharine, who married her cousin Allen
Bathurst, afterwards ist Baron and Earl Bathurst.
41
HISTORY OF THE BATHURST
FAMILY.
The family of Bathurst came originally from Sussex, where
they had a castle at a place called Bathurst, not far from
Battle Abbey ; but the owner, Laurence Bathurst, having
sided with the Lancastrians in the Wars of the Roses, was
dispossessed of his estates and executed in 1463 by Edward
IV., after the defeat of Henry VL at Hexham. The castle
was demolished, but the ruins were still to be seen in the
middle of the last century, in a wood called Bathurst Wood.
The son and grandson of this Laurence Bathurst, who
were of the same name, lived at Cranebrook, within three
miles of the ancient family seat, and also owned land at
Staplehurst in Kent.
Lancelot Bathurst, Alderman of London, in the fourth
generation from the Laurence Bathurst, who
ance ^^^^^ executed, built a house in the parish of
Batnurst
, .■,, Horton Kirby, Kent, called Franks, which still
Franks exists, in excellent preservation, though it has
long passed out of the family. It descended to
Lancelot's eldest son Randolph, and his male heirs, till
1738, when this branch of the family became extinct in the
male line. It is from George, the third son of Lancelot,
that the present family are descended. George Bathurst
lived the greater part of his life at Hothorpe in Northamp-
tonshire, a place which belonged to his wife Elizabeth Villiers,
and which she inherited from her father. George Bathurst
met his wife while pursuing his studies at Oxford, where she
lived with her mother and her step-father Dr. Kettel,
42
John Bathurst,
ancestor of the
athursts of Oakham.
Several other Sons.
1
IZABETH
1
Mary,
Susan,
narried
married
married
n Brown
Edmund Peshall,
of Bromley,
Robert Owen.
Kent.
= Frances,
1
EOROE.
DITH.
1
Susanna
Joseph.
Sir* Benjamin, Kt., LL.D. =
. 161I.
1631.
b. 1633.
b. 1634.
b. 1638.
2nd dau. of
• 1644- I170I.
Kdleil in
Treasurer of the Household
Sir Allen Apsley.
ailed at
Civil
to Princess Anne.
b. 1653.
lege of 1
Wars.
Cofferer to Queen Anne.
d. 1727.
rringdon
Bought Cirencester.
Buried at
Berks.
d. April 27th, 1704.
Buried at Paulerspury,
Northants.
Paulerspury.
pt, FiNETTA, dau.
and co-heiress
1
of Ann = Henry Pye,
Henry
Pool, of 1
Cemble, Wills.
of Farringdon.
d. 1738.
. 2nd, Catharine, dau. of
Laurence Brodrick, D.D.,
brother to Alan, Visct. Middleton.
children.
FRANd{st, Ann, dau. & heiress
1., 1st, Vf James, widow of
(M.P.), jChas. Phillips, d. 1758.
ir J. Wo(^nd, Tryphena, dau. of
(d. 17; Thomas Scawen,
i, Jas. Wof Maidwell, Northants,
M.I by Tryphena, dau. of
, Lord William Russell,
b. 1730. d. 1807.
1
Allen.
1
John,
Rev. Allen, LL.B,,
died
of
Rector of
an infant.
Saperton.
Beverstone & Saperton
b. 1728.
b. 1729. d. 1767.
d. 1777.
Buried at Saperton,
unmarried.
unmarried.
! 1
lA. ArSLEY.
I. b. 1769.
7. D.C.L.
1 Clerk of the Crown.
1 d. 1816.
1 1
r Geopgepir Fredk. C. Ponsonby,
Eapl. f 3rd Earl of Bessborough.
1790- ral. Governor of Malta.
1866. d. 1837.
1
Rev, Charles.
1). 1802. d. 1842.
Rector of Southam,
Warwickshire, and
Siddington, Glos.
= 1830, Lady Emily Bertie,
dau. of 5th Earl of Abingdon
d. 1881.
.YN, dau. of Marv
aard Hankey, b.
Park, Surrey. d.
1
Selina.
!s83".
HISTORY OF THE BATHURST
FAMILY.
The family of Bathurst came originally from Sussex, where
they had a castle at a place called Bathurst, not far from
Battle Abbey ; but the owner, Laurence Bathurst, having
sided with the Lancastrians in the Wars of the Roses, was
dispossessed of his estates and executed in 1463 by Edward
IV., after the defeat of Henry VL at Hexham. The castle
was demolished, but the ruins were still to be seen in the
middle of the last century, in a wood called Bathurst Wood.
The son and grandson of this Laurence Bathurst, who
were of the same name, lived at Cranebrook, within three
miles of the ancient family seat, and also owned land at
Staplehurst in Kent.
Lancelot Bathurst, Alderman of London, in the fourth
generation from the Laurence Bathurst, who
ance ^^^^ executed, built a house in the parish of
Bathurst
, .■■, Horton Kirby, Kent, called Franks, which still
Franks. exists, in excellent preservation, though it has
long passed out of the family. It descended to
Lancelot's eldest son Randolph, and his male heirs, till
1738, when this branch of the family became extinct in the
male line. It is from George, the third son of Lancelot,
that the present family are descended. George Bathurst
lived the greater part of his life at Hothorpe in Northamp-
tonshire, a place which belonged to his wife Elizabeth Villiers,
and which she inherited from her father. George Bathurst
met his wife while pursuing his studies at Oxford, where she
lived with her mother and her step-father Dr. Kettel,
42
f
aiohard Boteherste, 1438.
Lawrence BathUFSt, sided '
Lawrence Bathurst,
Lawrenc e Bathurst, of Staplehui
, whereby he forfeited 1
, dau. of Robert Chapmar
state in Sussex, and suflercd for Treason, I461.
Robert Bathurst, of Horsemonden, Kent,
and Lechlade, Glo'st., and Finchcocks, Kent.
John Bathurst,
iigthursts of Oakham.
Randolph Bathu
of East Sutton,
George, = isl, 1610, Elizabeth, daughter and h
f Hothorpe. I Edward Viliiers, of Hothorpe, Noi
b. 1589. b. IS9S- d. 1650.
d. 1656. =2nd, Susanna, dau. of Sir Richar
I of Watford, Norlhants, Kl
b. 1616.
Killed in
Civil
Wars.
Berks.
ll'u.°.i heir of John
Baunton, Devon,
General
b. 1625.
Killed in
Civil
Wars.
b. 16;
Benjamin, Kt., LL.D. = Prances.
:d in Tre:
Wars. Co
of Balllesden, Beds, I7'2,
and Earl Bathurst,
of Bathurst, Sussex, 1772.
M.r. for Cirencester 1705. P.O.
Treasurer to George, Pr. of Wales,
Capt. of Band of Gentlemen Pens
of Clarendon P
M.P. for Cireiii
, Leonora IVIaria,
Charles Howe,
of Gritworlh, Norlhants.
Tbroteo-J
3 6 children.
ETTA, dau. and
' Pool, of Kcml
d. 1738.
' , D.D.,
. MidtUeton.
m. Hon. Reginald
Courtenay, bro. to
Henry, 2nd Earl, ^ <ist, Ann, dau. & heiress
ere. Baron Apsley and of James, widow of
Lord Chancellor I77r. Chas. Phillips, d. 1758.
President of the Council = and, Tryphena, dau. of
of Maidwell, Northants,
by Tryphena, dau. of
I Lord William Russell.
d T*'
"^11
Petek George t
Seymour Thomas, = 1829, Julia, dau. of
Lt.-Col. Coldstream Guards. I John Peter Hankey.
Treasurer of Malta. b. 179S.
Rector of Southam,
Warwickshire, and
Siddinglon, Glos.
Isabel Melii
d. Oct.' I
Alexander 1874= 2nd, EvEJ.VN', dau. of
th Earl. 1 George Barnard Hankey,
3r Cirencester. | of F ' '- ■ ■
■ Fetchani|Park, ,
b. 1S34.'
d. 1SS3.
I Meriel.= Ge.
HISTORY OF THE BATHURST FAMILY,
President of Trinity College. She was only 14 years old
when she married. It is reported of George Bathurst that
"at the time of his marriage he was worth about ;^3oo a
year, and that all his children were very ingenious and
prosperous in the world, and most of them handsome." He
married, secondly, Susanna, daughter of Sir Richard Burneby
of Watford, Northants, but had no children by her. He
was buried in Theddingworth Church, Leicestershire, the
parish in which Hothorpe lies. On the upper part of the
tomb are busts of himself and his first wife, Elizabeth, and
below, are the figures of their 13 sons and 4 daughters,
one son being in swaddling clothes ; there is a long inscrip-
tion, giving the names of all the children. Several of his
sons lost their lives in the Civil Wars, among others, the
eldest son, George, a Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, who
died in 1644, of a wound in the thigh, which he received
while defending the garrison of Farringdon in Berkshire,
against the rebels. The second son, Edward, was said to be
" a person of singular learning and probity.'' He also was
a Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, and left some land
in Northamptonshire to his college for charitable purposes ;
he erected a statute of the Founder of Trinity over the
entrance to the hall, in 1665, at which time his brother
Ralphe was engaged in re-building this college. He was the
rector of Cheping-Warden, Northants.
Ralphe, the fifth son of George Bathurst, was celebrated
in two learned professions. He was educated
Dean ^^ Trinity College, Oxford, which he entered
when only 14 years of age, his step -grandfather.
Dr. Kettel, being the President of the College at this time.
He took orders in 1644, but on the suppression of the
Church Establishment by the Parliament, he turned his
43
HISTORY OF THE BATHURST FAMILY.
attention to the study of medicine, taking the degree of
M.D. in 1654, and practising as a physician in Oxford for
many years. He was appointed physician to the sick, and
wounded in the Navy, under the Commonwealth, which
office he discharged with great success. It was while prac-
tising at Oxford that he had the curious experience of
bringing back to life a girl called Anne Green, after she
had been hung. Dr. Bathurst and his friend Dr. Willis
discovered that the intended subject of a lecture on anatomy
was still alive, and they were so completely successful in
recovering her, that she lived for many years afterwards and
married. iVlthough Dr. Bathurst apparendy devoted himself
to the medical profession, during the years of Puritan
ascendency, yet he did not forget that he was a clergyman.
There was but one Bishop who ventured to hold ordinations
during the period when the church was under the Puritan
ban ; this was Skinner Bishop of Oxford, and he was aided
in this work by Dr. Bathurst, who under cover of visiting
patients, used to hold the necessary interviews with the
candidates. It is said that these secret ordinations
were sometimes held in the Chapel of Trinity College, of
which Ralphe Bathurst and two of his brothers were Fellows.
After the Restoration, Dr. Bathurst was nominated Chaplain
to the King, and President of Trinity ; and as the college
buildings were almost in ruins, he raised subscriptions for
their re-building, and re-built the chapel at his own expense.
The dons of Baliol were less energetic than the dons of
Trinity, and long after Trinity was restored by Dr. Bathurst's
exertions, Baliol still remained in a dilapidated condition
with all the windows broken. Dr. Bathurst was not without
a secret feeling of triumph at the contrast, and it is said
that he had been seen in extreme old age, to pick up a
44
HISTORY OF THE BATHURST FAMILY.
Stone in his garden, and throw it through one of the broken
windows of Baliol, to complete the ruin. He was a Fellow
of the Royal Society, then in its infancy, and was famous for
his Latin scholarship; he wrote some medical books in Latin
and various Latin verses; among others some Iambics in praise
of Hobbes' free-thinking treatise on " Human Nature," which
were published with that work and which created some
scandal among religious persons, although, curiously enough,
the notice they attracted are said to be the cause of his
appointment to the Deanery of Wells, in 1670. He con-
tinued to live at Oxford, residence at his Deanery not being
considered necessary in those days, and in 1673 he became
Vice-Chancellor of the University. We have a record of
one of his sermons, preached before Charles H., May nth,
1666, on the text, "I say unto you all, Watch," which Evelyn
says was "a seasonable and most excellent discourse." In
1 69 1, he was offered the Bishopric of Bristol by William
III., with liberty to retain his Deanery, but he refused, as
it would have entailed giving up his college life, to which
he was much attached. He married Mary, widow of Dr.
John Palmer, Warden of All Souls, and daughter and heir
of John Tristram of Baunton, Devon, and of Lady Mary
Ley, daughter of James, Earl of Marlborough and Lord
High Treasurer of England. She had no children by her
second marriage. Dean Bathurst was quite blind for some
years before his death which occurred in consequence of
breaking his thigh in a fall, occassioned by his blindness while
walking in his garden. He died at the age of 84, a couple
of months before his brother Sir Benjamin, who was many
years his junior. He was buried in the Chapel of Trinity
College, Oxford. His life was written by Warton, and
published with his "Literary Remains" in 1761, with a
45
HISTORY OF THE BATHURST FAMILY.
portrait at the beginning, which hardly bears out the
reputation of beauty which his family enjoyed.
Sir Benjamin Bathurst was the 13th son and xyth child
of George Bathurst, of Hothorpe, but of his
_ ^ , early life we know nothing. He was already
^ J , of middle age, knighted, and in full tide of
Bathurst. ^ ^
prosperity when we first hear of hmi. He was
a Director of the East India Company, and was appointed
Governor in 16S8-9. On Princess Anne's marriage to Prince
George of Denmark in 1683, he was made her Treasurer,
and held this office till her accession when he became
Cofferer of the Household. The Princess's household can
hardly have been a bed of roses under the iron rule of
Sarah Duchess of Marlborough, but Sir Benjamin steered his
course prudently, and it does not appear that he fell under
the displeasure either of Queen Mary or of the Duchess of
Marlborough, in spite of the war that raged between them.
On one occasion, when Sir Benjamin was sent by Princess
Anne to inform Queen Mary of her approaching accouche-
ment, the Queen refused to see him, but this was in the
height of her quarrel with her sister, and does not imply
any personal feeling against Sir Benjamin.
Lady Bathurst (Frances Apsley") was very intimate both
with Queen Mary and Queen Anne in their
Portrait ^^^^^ days. A letter from the former, then
of aueeii pj-incess Mary, to Lady Bathurst, which is at
Mary.
Cirencester, gives the history of a portrait of the
Princess, that is now in the hall at Cirencester. King
James desired to have a portrait of his daughter, whom he
was very fond of, little dreaming that within three years
from that time, she would have supplanted him on the
throne ; and he sent over a painter to Holland, shortly after
46
HISTORY OF THE BATHURST FAMILY.
his accession, to paint both her and the Prince of Orange.
This painter, whose name was Wissing, though a Dutchman
by birth, was historical painter to King James, and had
formerly been an assistant to Sir Peter Lely, who in his
youth had been a pupil of Vandyke. He painted the two
portraits ordered, and they were sent to the King, and are
now at Hampton Court. This must have been in 1685 or
1686, and the following letter from Princess Mary respecting
her own portrait, must have been written in 1685 or 1686 as
Wissing died early in the following year 1687.
" for the Lady Bathurst,
Loo , October the 4th.
I own your complaint to be just, my dear Aurelia and
my long silence to be without excuse and am
Letter of resolved to make amends for the time to come ;
Princess as for my picture Mr. Wissing is now in
y England so I cant give you an original but if
P ,, you will have a copie he may make you one
whenever you please do but give him order
and I shall take care to pay him when he sends me the
picture I expect from him. Pray remember me very
kindly to my Lady Apsley and tho I have not time at
the present to say more yet be assured I shall never alter
towards you as long as I live.
Pray when you (speak ?) to Mr. Wissing tell him I write
by this post to the King about the Duchesses picture and
my Brother's."
It is not quite clear who she means by the Duchess and
her brother. The most probable explanation is that the
portraits were those of her mother, the Duchess of York
(Anne Hyde) and her brother Edgar, Duke of Cambridge,
47
HISTORY OF THE BATHURST FAMILY.
who died when he was six years old. It is possible that
Princefs Mary may have wished for copies of their portraits.
An interesting story is repeated by Miss Strickland {Queens
of England, vol. x., p. 372), with reference to the original
picture of Princess Mary, of which the one at Cirencester is
a replica. This picture hung in James IPs. private cabinet,
and in an audience which the King gave to Edmund Waller,
poet and statesman, then an old man, he asked him " How
do you like that portrait of my eldest daughter .?" " My
eyes are dim," replied Waller, " but if that is the Princess
of Orange, she bears some resemblance to the greatest
woman the world ever saw." The King asked who he
meant, and testified some surprise when Waller answered,
" Queen Elizabeth." " She had great ministers," drily
observed the King. " And when did your majesty ever
know a fool choose wise ones?" rejoined Waller, impressively.
The great grandson of Mary Queen of Scots might have
been excused for not joining very cordially in the praises of
Queen Elizabeth.
The following letters from Princess Anne to Sir Benjamin
refer to the time when she left the Cockpit, a house which
had originally formed part of Whitehall Palace, although it
was not on the same side of the street, but having been
alienated from the Palace in the days of the Commonwealth,
was re -purchased by Charles II. from Lord Danby, and
assigned by him to Princess Anne, for a residence, on her
marriage. It stood between what is now the Horse Guards
and Downing Street. Early in 1692, William III. dismissed
Lord Marlborough, not only from his office as gentleman of
the bedchamber, but from all his employments, military and
civil, including that of Lieutenant -General, for his faults in
excessive taking of bribes, covetousness and extortion, on all
48
HISTORY OF THE BATHURST FAMILY.
occasions, from his inferior officers. And later in the same
year, on the discovery of his treasonable correspondence
with King James, William sent him to the Tower. In the
meantime Queen Mary desired her sister to dismiss Lady
Marlborough from her household, and as this request only
excited Princess Anne's bitterest resentment, and was met by
an absolute refusal to part with her favourite, Queen Mary
then sent an official message, warning Lord and Lady Marl-
borough to abide no longer at the Palace of Whitehall,
under which name she included the Cockpit. Princess Anne,
upon this, at once gave up her own residence at the Cockpit,
and left it for Sion House, which was lent her for the occa-
sion by the Duchess of Somerset. It is not certain that the
following letter is of this date, as the only date given is
"Thursday night," but the context makes it probable, as for
some time after she left the Cockpit, she lived in hired
houses ; and after her sister's death, the royal palaces of St
James' and Windsor were lent her by King William, in none
of which would repairs or alterations be her affair; and it is
evident that she wishes some projected improvements to be
stopped, for some reason which she prefers to explain by
word of mouth. The sudden change of plans points to this
letter being written immediately after Queen Mary's order to
Lord and Lady Marlborough to leave the Cockpit, and
Princess Anne's consequent sudden determination to go away
also, which she announced to the Queen in a letter dated
February 8th, 1692. If this is so the letter to Sir Benjamin
which here follows was written, in all probability, on the
following Thursday, February nth, 1692.
"For Si' Benj" Bathurst.
For feare I should not have an opertunety of speaking
49 «
HISTORY OF THE BATHURST FAMILY,
with you before you go to y® treasury, I writt
01 ^i^jg J.Q desire you would not press anything
CI1166I1
. to be don more to this house then what S''
Anne
to Sir B Chrystopher Wren represents to be .necessary
Bathurst. ^o^ repairing of it, for reasons yt I will tell you
when I see you.
Thursday night." Anne.
The Princess moved to Sion House soon after, in the
course of February, and remained there for some months,
during which one of the many children was born, whom the
Princess was unfortunate enough to bring into the world,
only to see them die in the course of a few days or months.
The letter that comes next was evidently written from Sion
House, which, as it is nearly opposite Richmond, would be
at a convenient distance from London to enable her to go
to the Playhouse, using the Cockpit, where some of her
household still lived, as a pied-a-terre. Although the allusion
to taking the waters might suggest that she was at Bath, yet
this is certainly not the case, as we know by the subsequent
letter that she was at Bath in October of the same year,
and the journey to Bath was far too serious a business to be
undertaken twice in so short a time, especially as the Princess
was in delicate health at the time, nor could she have
travelled from Bath to London in one day.
"For SI- Benj" Bathurst.
I was in such hast when I writt last night I had not
time to tell you ye reason I kept your man so
from ^°"S' ^^ ^^^^ ^° ^^^^ ^* night he came I could
Clueen ^^^ possible writt to have sent him back in any
Anne time nor I could not do it yesterday morning
to Sir B. because I took ye waters and all y*^ afternoon I
Bathurst. ^^^^ hindered by a lady y* came from London,
59
HISTORY OF THE BATHURST FAMILY.
I shall be at y^ Cockpitt tomorrow by four o'clock and I
desire you would order half a dozen boats to be at y''
bridge at Whithall (at half an hour after) to carry me to
the Play house w°b is all I have to say but y* I am your
very affectionate friend,
Anne.
Wensday past six oclock,
July VI. 1692."
The Princess was engaged during this summer in negoti-
ating for the hire of Berkeley House, the property of Lord
Berkeley, standing on the site of the present Devonshire
House. The letter that is next given refers to this affair,
and was written very shortly before she took possession of
Berkeley House, in the autumn of 1692.
"To S^ Benjn Bathurst,
Bath, October y^' 3rd.
I received a letter from you this morning and cant help
Letter of laughing at y« pretention you tell me Lord
dueen Berkly has to keep a garrett in y® house it is
Anne so very ridiculus and more impertinent if it be
to Sir B. possible than anything they have don yet, pray
Bathurst. ^gj^ -^^^^ Berkly her son has lodgings in y^
Cockpitt as groom of y® Stole w°^ are much better than
any he can expect in a place where I am so streightened for
room myself I hope since I have don all I can to make
them easy in my house they will think it reasonable to
inake me so in theirs, w'''^ is impossible for me to be if
they keep any one room as to what you say about y'' house
at Newbury I gave nothinge to y® servants when I came
down nor dont remember I gave anything myself when I lay
theire the time before, therefore you had best give y® Clark
of y® kitching order to give what you did then ; I have
51
HISTORY OF THE BATHURST FAMILY.
ordered Otway to go this week to Camden house ("Princess
Anne sometimes used Campden House, where her son the
little Duke of Gloucester had his establishment, as a
temporary residence ''), to furnish yt room that was foster's
(PGloster's) for y^ Princes use, and I desire you would lett
fiers be made in y* the parlour and my bedchamber a week
before I com constantly every day, and if you will send to
Burt to see it don it will be better than to leave it to the
pages of the back stairs ; I hope you have not forgot to
bespeake some patrons of lace for y'' liverys nor to pay Mr.
Baptist y'' money I desired you ; I can not end this without
thanking you for your kindness in giveing me so constant an
account of my boy I do assure you it shall never be
forgotten by your very affectionate friend
Anne.
pray remember me very kindly to your lady."
An anecdote which refers to Sir Benjamin is told by
Miss Strickland {^Queens of England, xi., p. 369). In the
summer of 1695, change of air was recommended by Dr.
Radcliffe for the delicate little Duke of Gloucester, Princess
Anne's son, then six years old. The Princess inquired for
houses at Epsom, Richmond and Hampstead ; at last her
own early reminiscences led her to prefer Twickenham ; but
she no longer had the command of the old palace where
she was nursed. She was offered three adjacent houses for
her son's household and her own. They belonged to Mrs.
Davies, an ancient gentlewoman of Charles I's. court, who
was more than eighty years of age. She was aunt to the old
Earl of Berkeley, and consequently great aunt to the govenor
of the little prince, Lord Fitzharding. She was devout, and
lived an ascetic life on herbs and fruit, although a lady of
family and property. Simple as were her habits, she enjoyed
52
HISTORY OF THE BATHURST FAMILY.
a healthy and cheerful old age. All the fields and hedge-
rows of her estate she had caused to be planted with
beautiful fruit trees. The cherries were richly ripe when the
Princess came to Twickenham, and the hospitable gentle-
woman gave the individuals of the princess's household leave
to gather as much fruit as they pleased, on the condition
" that they were not to break or spoil her trees." When
the Princess had resided at this lady's house for a month,
she told Sir Benjamin Bathurst to take a hundred guineas,
and offer them to their aged hostess, in payment for rent
and for trouble she and her people had given her, but the
old lady positively declared she would receive nothing. Sir
Benjamin, nevertheless, pressed the payment on her, and put
the guineas in her lap, but the loyal gentlewoman persisted
in her refusal, and rising up, let the gold she rejected roll
to all corners of the room, and left the comptroller to
gather it up as he might.
The following letter was written by Queen Anne to Sir
Benjamin after her accession, probably in 1703. It shows
that the Queen entered into all the details of her household.
" Queen Anne to Sir Benjamin Bathurst,
Windsor, June 8.
I received yours yesterday and should be very glad if
Potvin would bring down y' part of my bed he
Letter of showed you, but as for y® confectioner you
Uueen mention I do not approve of him, for I will
^ o- -r. never take any bodys servant from them tho
to Sir B. ^ ■'
Bathurst ^ ^^ ^^^™ never soe willing to it — therefore I
desire you would look out for some other or if
you could meet with a woman y* dos those kind of things
well, I had rather have one than a man, w*^'^ is all I have
to say, but y' I am your very affectionate friend,
Anne."
53
HISTORY OF THE BATHURST FAMILY.
Sir Benjamin owned a good deal of property in
Northamptonshire, including the Manor House of Paulers-
pury, which, no doubt, was his country house for some years
before he bought Cirencester, as it was the place chosen for
his burial. The inscription to his memory and that of his
wife, in Paulerspury Church, is as follows : —
" Here lie the bodies of Benjamin Bathurst and Dame
Frances Bathurst, his wife. Sir Benjamin was descended
from the ancient family of Bathursts of Bathurst in the
County of Sussex. But his ancestor Laurence Bathurst
having taken part with Henry VI. forfeited his life and
estate to Edward IV., who granted the estate to Battle
Abbey. Sir Benjamin was the twelfth son of George
Bathurst, fourth son of Lancelot Bathurst of Franks in the
county of Kent. In 1610 George Bathurst married Eliz.
daughter and co-heiress of Edward Villiers of Howthorp in
this county, from whom Sir Benjamin inherited the said
manor and estate, all his brothers having died in his
lifetime without male issue. Sir Benjamin was appointed
Treasurer to the Princess Anne of Denmark on the first
establishment of her household, and by his singular prudence
and economy recommended himself so far to the favour of
his royal mistress as that on her coming to the throne, she
constituted him Cofferer of her household, which office he
enjoyed till his death. His lady, who was second daughter
of Sir Allen Apsley of Apsley in Com. Sussex, had the
singular good fortune to pass her early years with the two
Princesses, Lady Mary and Lady Ann, both afterwards
Queens of England ; and during the whole of their lives
was honour'd with their friendship, of which she was in
no wise undeserving. He died 27th April 1704, aged 65,
she died August 1727, aged 74."
54
HISTORY OF THE BATHURST FAMILY.
This inscription contains two errors : — Sir Benjamin was
not the 1 2th but the 13th son of George Bathurst ; and the
estate of Hothorpe can never actually have been in his
possession, since the last of his elder brothers, Moses, held it
till his death, March 28th, 1705, nearly a year after Sir
Benjamin's death, when it descended to his son Allen. The
place was sold in 1805 by the 3rd Earl. It was Sir Benja-
min who in 1695 bought Cirencester House and estate, and
the many portraits in the house of various celebrities of
Charles H's. court and reign, no doubt date from his time.
Some of his relations, Bathursts of the Yorkshire branches
of the family, were settled in Lechlade in the neighbourhood
of Cirencester, which perhaps was the cause of his fixing his
home in this part of the country. He married Frances,
second daughter of Sir Allen Apsley, and left four children,
of whom three were sons ; and to each of his sons he left an
estate : — Cirencester to Allen, Clarenden Park in Wiltshire
to Peter, and Lydney in Gloucestershire to
Sir Benjamin. It is a curious fact that although
Benjamin's Peter had 17 children and Benjamin 36, yet
descena- -^^ ^^^^i cases male heirs failed in the course of
one or two generations. One of Benjamin's
36 children was Henry, Bishop of Norwich, and it is a son
of his, another Benjamin, whose mysterious disappearance in
Germany, November 25th, 1809, remains unexplained to this
day. (See printed account of the event, from the Comhill
Magazine of March, 1887.) Of the three children left by
this Benjamin Bathurst, two met with violent deaths : one
son was killed by a fall from his horse at a race at Rome,
and a daughter, Rosa, also died at Rome from an accident,
when only 18 years of age. She was riding with a party of
friends along the path by the side of the Tiber, which being
55
HISTORY OF THE BATHURST FAMILY.
much swollen by flood had undermined the banks and made
the path narrower than usual. Her horse led the way, and
being frightened from some cause, tried to turn back, when
its hind legs slipped over the edge, and, to the horror of
the rest of the party, who were unable to give any help,
it fell backwards into the flooded river with its unfortunate
rider, who was instantly whirled out of sight by the current,
nothing being seen of her by her companions, after she
fell in, but one raised arm with her riding-whip in her hand.
Her body was recovered after some weeks, the whip still
grasped in the hand.
Sir Benjamin's eldest son Allen was born in 1684, and
in 1692, at the age of eight, he married his
Allen, first cousin Catherine Apsley, daughter of
1st Earl sii- Peter Apsley, who was only four. This
Batnurst. marriage is described by their daughter Lady
Marriage Leonora Urmston, as being celebrated in jest,
^0 . to please their grandmother Lady Apsley. Lady
C fi,"t"li6riiiG
1 Leonora bequeathed the tiny wedding-ring and
guard, used on the occasion, which had fallen
into her hands, to the head of the family at the time
being, in a paper of which the following is a copy : —
Sir Allen Lady Apsley,
Apsley. I his wife.
Fortrey,— Sir Peter Francess Apsley,— Sir Benjamin
his wife. I Apsley. married to I Bathurst.
I Sir B. B. I
Catharine Apsley married Allen Lord
Born June 27th, 1688. 1692 Bathurst.
Died June 8th, at 12 with this Born Nov. 16, 1684.
at night, 1768. ring in jest to Died Sept. l6th,
please ye old Lady 1775-
Apsley, married
again, July 6th,
1704.
5^
HISTORY OF THE RATHURST FAMILY.
"When I dye, I beg these rings and my fathers and mothers
pictures may be given to the person who shall at that time be
Head of the Family, whoever it may happen to be.
Leonora Urmston."
It is, in fact, a mistake to speak of the marriage as a
jest. Infantine marriages had long been a common custom
in the case of heiresses and great persons. The youngest
of the little princes who were murdered in the Tower,
for instance, the Duke of York, who was only eight years
old, was already a widower. In Charles II's. reign there
were many of these childish marriages. They were regarded
in the light of formal betrothals, which required ratification
by a second marriage in maturer years ; but it was not often
that they were set aside. A curious instance of these double
marriages was that of the first Duke of Grafton to the little
daughter and heiress of the Earl of Arlington, the " Secretary
Bennett " of whom Mrs. Hutchinson had such great cause
of complaint, and who expressed himself anxious for the
health of Col. Hutchinson's soul. Lord Arlington had been
an ardent Royalist during the Civil Wars, in the course of
which he received a cut over the bridge of the nose which
obliged him to wear a black patch for the rest of his life.
He was advanced to great honours by Charles II., who
created him- Earl of Arlington, and made several grants of
crown land to him, including the site of the present
Buckingham Palace and Euston in Suffolk. His portrait is to
be seen in the dining room at Cirencester House. The
future Duchess was only five when her first marriage took
place, but she was called Duchess of Grafton thenceforward.
She was re-married at the age of 12. (See Evelyns Diary ^
August ist, 1672, and November 6th, 1679.)
57 I
HISTORY OF THE BATHURST FAMILY.
Thus Lady Apsley only followed royal example when she
married her two grand children to one another, in their
childhood. They were re-married July 6th, 1704; but it
cannot be said that Allen Bathurst acted under compulsion
on this occasion, for his grand mother had long been
dead, and his father had also died three months before,
when the young man of 19, after finishing his education
at Trinity College, Oxford, brought home his wife of 16, to
be mistress at Cirencester.
In the following year, 1705, there was a general election,
and 'although he was not quite of age, he was
^ tor elected member for Cirencester, His first vote
Cirencester j r u 1 .u
was canvassed for by no less a personage than
Queen Anne herself, who wrote the following letter to his
mother, to induce him to vote for her protege, Mr. John
Smith, as Speaker of the House of Commons. The date of
the letter is October 23rd, 1705, two days before the new
parliament met.
" Queen Anne to Lady Bathurst,
Kensington, October y^ 23rd.
I doubt what I am now going to say will come too late
jpj-j. to obtain my wish, the meeting of parliament
from being soe very neare, y* one may reasonably
Clueeii believe that every one has taken their resolution
Anne to who they will give their votes for to be speaker ;
Lady however I cannot help asking you whether your
urs . g^^ -g engaged or no. If he be not, I hope
you will give me your interest with him to be for Mr.
Smith. I look upon myself to have a particular conserne
for Mr. Bathurst, both for his father's sake and y'' long
acquaintance and friendship there has been between you and
.S8
HISTORY OF THE BATHURST FAMILY.
me, which makes me very desirous he may alhvays behave
himself rightly in everything. I do not at all doubt of his
good inclinations to serve me, and therefore hope, tho' it
should be too late to recall his resolutions as to y® speaker,
he will be carefuU never to engage himself soe far into any
party as not to be at liberty to leave them when he sees
them running into things that are unreasonable, for I shall
allways depend on his concurring in everything y* is good
for me and for the publick.
I hope when I am at St. James's I shall see you oftener
than I have don of late, and that you will com whenever
it is easyest to yourself to her y* will be glad to see you at
any time, and is, with all sincerity, y*'^
Anne R."
Mr. John Smith was elected Speaker, but not by Allen
Bathurst's vote, as we see by Lady Bathurst's answer to the
Queen : —
" I am just come to town and have received the honour
of your Majeste's letter, I am extremely afflicted that your
Majesty should signify your inclinations in any thing where
in I cannot give an instance of my Duty, but the Relation
and long acquaintance Mr, Bromley has had in this family,
engaged my son to promiss him his vote from the first time he
thought of being speaker, and before he knew what opposition
he was like to have, your Majesty has just Reason to expect
from any thing that belongs to me not only inclinations, but an
active zeal for your service, and I dare say my son will
according to the best of his judgment be ready to expresse
that in everry thing, I am sure if he does not he will fail the
hopes I have of him, and it will be a great trouble to me,
59
HISTORY OF THE BATHURST FAMILY.
who can only Return all your Majesty's goodness to me
and mine by being in a particular manner
Madam
your Majesty's most
Oct. ye 24, Devoted and Obedient
1705." humble servant.
Three years later he was honoured by a visit from
Oueen Anne, who with Prince George of
Anne's Denmark, slept the night of August 28th,
visit to 1708) at Cirencester House, on their way to
Cirencester Bath.
Allen Bathurst was a Tory in politics, and was suspected
of a leaning to the Jacobites, but if this feeling existed, it
was kept within discreet bounds, and was only shown by
his friendship with Henry St. John,* Lord Bolingbroke, who
was exiled for his Jacobite principles in 17 14, on George I's.
accession ; and in his spirited defence of Bishop Atterbury
on the charge of complicity with Jacobite conspiracies. He
distinguished himself greatly in his support of the Union
between England and Scotland, and in opposition to the
warUke policy of the Duke of Marlborough ; acting always
as a warm adherent to his friends, Robert Harley, Earl of
Oxford, and Henry St. John, Lord Bolingbroke. During the
negotiations for peace with France in 171 1, the Queen, who
was most anxious for peace, found that the Tory ministry
under Lord Oxford, was not strong enough in the House of
Lords to oppose the Whigs, who desired the continuance of
war. She therefore determined to create a Tory majority,
and astonished her Council, one day, by taking out of her
* See note at end, reference to the Bag of the Great Seal.
60
HISTORY OF THE BATHURST FAMILY.
pocket a list of twelve persons whom she designed to raise
to the peerage. Allen Bathurst was one of these new peers,
and became Baron Bathurst of Battlesden. When the twelve
new Barons took their seats, the resemblance to a jury was
so striking that they were asked by the Whigs "whether they
would speak by their foreman." The Queen's scheme was
successful, and the peace of Utrecht was signed three
months after this sudden influx of Tory Lords into the
Upper House.
Lord Bathurst was strongly opposed to the Duke of
Wharton's administration, and on the occasion of a general
election (March, 1721), the Duke gave ;^iooo to the well-
known Dr. Young, Rector of Welwyn, Herts, and author
of a poem called " Night Thoughts," to oppose the
candidate for Cirencester, supported by Lord Bathurst. Dr.
Young's opposition proved formidable and alarmed Lord
Bathurst, who being a better politician than his opponent,
invited Dr. Young, whom he well knew, to dine at his house
with some friends, among whom was the candidate supported
by Lord Bathurst. The unsuspecting poet fell into the snare
and accepted the invitation ; but, in the midst of his
conviviality, a message was brought to him that his party,
convinced by his dining with Lord Bathurst that he had
formed a coalition with his opponent, were violently incensed
against him and that they had assembled in great numbers at
the gate, threatening to tear him in pieces as soon as he
should make his appearance. Lord Bathurst was obliged
to provide a large number of his own adherents in
order to escort the Doctor to his inn, and protect him
from his friends. These friends, however, were not so
easily appeased. They afterwards broke by violence into
61
HISTORY OF THE BATHURST FAMILY.
the room in which Dr. Young was in bed, and headed
by a cooper, armed with his adze, so furiously menaced
the apostate that, according to the humourous relation of
Lord Bathurst, " I was obliged," said Dr. Young, " to
kneel in my shirt, and use all the rhetoric of which I
was master, to save my life. Oh, that cooper ! " " This,"
added Lord Bathurst, " furnished the unfortunate poet
with a new complaint, or night thought, for the remainder
of his life."
Lord Bathurst spent most of his time in opposition, as
the Tory government only remained in office for three years,
and the accession of George L brought the Whigs into
power, with Sir Robert Walpole at their head, whom Lord
Bathurst actively opposed throughout his long career. After
Sir Robert's fall in 1742, Lord Bathurst was made a Privy
Councillor and Captain of the Band of Gentlemen Pensioners,
which office he resigned in 1744. He was appointed
Treasurer to the Prince of Wales (afterwards George
in.) in 1757, and when that Prince came to the
throne, although Lord Bathurst declined office on account of
his great age, he had a pension granted him of ;^2ooo a
year, and was in 1772 advanced to an Earldom. He was
spared to see his son, well stricken in years, sitting on the
Woolsack as Lord High Chancellor, being the only person,
except the father of Sir Thomas More, who ever enjoyed
this happiness. He was an intimate associate of all the
principal men of letters of his day ; Swift, Prior, Congreve,
Gay, Arbuthnot, Addison, Pope, Atterbury, St. John, Sterne
and Burke. He was the most genial and jovial of peers ;
his name is invariably mentioned in the memoirs of the
time wath affectionate respect. Among the many literary
HISTORY OF THE EATHURST FAMILY.
men around him, Pope seems to have been one of the
most intimate. He was a constant visitor at Cirencester
House, or Oakley Grove as it was sometimes called, and
took the greatest delight in Lord Bathurst's woods and
plantations, and it appears from a letter of Bishop Atterbury
to him, that he acted as Lord Bathurst's architect and
landscape gardener. The Bishop writes, September 21st,
1 72 1 : — "I am pleased to find you have so
Letter much pleasure, and (which is the foundation of
from it) so much health at Lord Bathurst's, may
^ ^ both continue till I see you : may my Lord
Atterhury , , . ^ . .\ .,^. ' \
, _ have as much satisfaction in building the house
to Pope. . . '=' .
in the wood and using it when built, as you
have in designing it ! I cannot send a wish after him that
means him more happiness, and yet, I am sure, I wish him
as much as he wishes himself." This apparently refers to
the artificial ruins, which still go by the name of the Wood
House, and fixes both their date and their architect. The
Wood House is again mentioned in a letter of a later date,
from Mrs. Pendarves (better known as Mrs. Delany) to
Dean Swift, written from Gloucester, and dated October 24th,
1733, as follows : — "A few days before I had your last letter,
my sister and I made a visit to my Lord and Lady
Bathurst at Cirencester. Oakley Wood adjoins to his Park ;
the grand avenue that goes from his House through his Park
and wood is five miles long ; the whole contains five thousand
acres. We staid there a day and a half; the wood is
extremely improved since you saw it ; and when the whole
design is executed, it will be one of the finest places in
England. My Lord Bathurst talked with great delight of
the pleasure you once gave him by surprising him in his
wood, and showed me the house where you lodged. It has
63
HISTORY OF THE BATHURST FAMILY.
been rebuilt ; for the day you left it, it fell to the ground ;
conscious of the honour it had received by entertaining so
illustrious a person, it burst with pride. My Lord Bathurst
has greatly improved the Woodhouse, which you may
remember but a cottage, not a bit better than an Irish
cabin. It is now a venerable castle, and has been taken by
an antiquarian for one of King Arthur's, ' with thicket over-
grown grotesque and wild.' I endeavoured to sketch it out
for you ; but I have not skill enough to do it justice. My
Lord Bathurst was in great spirits; and though surrounded
by candidates and voters against next Parliament, made
himself agreeable in spite of their clamour."
Lord Bathurst proved himself a true friend to Bishop
Atterbury on the occasion of his impeachment
°^ before the House of Lords for treasonable
Bathurst's , ■-,,.. . . , . ,
, „ „ correspondence with the Pretender, of which.
Bishop '^^ ^^*^'-' ^^ ^^'^^ undoubtedly guilty. Lord
Atterbury. Bathurst defended him in a speech, in which he
said, " that if such extraordinary proceedings
were countenanced, he saw nothing remaining for him and
others to do, but to retire to their country houses, and
there, if possible, quietly enjoy their estates within their own
families, since the least correspondence, or intercepted letter
might be made criminal." Then turning to the Bishop
he said, "he could hardly account for the inveterate hatred and
malice some persons bore the ingenious Bishop of Rochester,
unless it was, that they were infatuated like the wild
Americans, who fondly believe they inherit, not only the
spoils, but even the abilities of the man they destroy." He
was one of the Lords who entered his protest against the
bill.
04
HISTORY OF THE BATHURST FAMILY,
Pope's enjoyment of the beauties of Cirencester, during
his frequent visits there, was great. Writing to
Pope s Y\[s friend Mr. Digby of Sherburne in Dorsetshire,
Letters. ^ .■ ^ ■ ■, r
in 1720, he mentions an account he received of
him from Lady Scudamore "whose short eschantillon of a
letter (of a quarter of a page) I value as the short glimpse
of a vision afforded to some devout hermit ; for it includes
(as those revelations do) a promise of a better life in the
Elysian groves of Cirencester, whither, I could say almost in
the style of a sermon, the Lord bring us all, etc. Thither
may we tend, by various ways, to one blissful bower ; thither
may health, peace and good humour wait upon us as
associates ; thither may whole cargoes of nectar (liquor of
life and longevity), by mortals called spa-water, be conveyed ;
and there (as Milton has it) may we, like the deities, on
flow'rs repos'd, and with fresh garlands crown'd, quaff
immortality and joy. When I speak of garlands, I should
not forget the green vestments and scarfs, which your sisters
promised to make for this purpose. I expect you too in
green, with a hunting horn by your side and a green hat,
the model of which you may take from Osborne's description
of King James the First."
And, again, in 1722, " Lm told you are all upon removal
very speedily, and that Mrs. Mary Digby talks in a letter to
Lady Scudamore, of seeing my Lord Bathurst's wood in her
way. How much I wish to be her guide through that
enchanted forest, is not to be expressed ; I look upon
myself as the magician appropriated to the place, without
whom no mortal can penetrate into the recesses of those
sacred shades. I could pass whole days in only describing
to her the future, and as yet visionary beauties that are to
rise in those scenes. The palace that is to be built, the
65 !
HISTORY OF THE BATHURST FAMILY.
pavilions that are to glitter, the colonnades that are to adorn
them ; nay more, the meeting of the Thames and the
Severn, which (when the noble Owner has finer dreams
than ordinary) are to be led into each others embraces
through secret caverns of not above twelve or fifteen miles,
till they rise and celebrate their marriage in the midst of an
immense amphitheatre, which is to be the admiration of
posterity a hundred years hence, but till the destined time
shall arrive that is to manifest these wonders, Mrs, Digby
must content herself with seeing what is at present no more
than the finest wood in England,"
In the following letter, also from Pope to Mr. Digby
(1724), there is little doubt that "Lord B." is Lord Bathurst.
" I should be sorry to see my Lady Scudamore's till it has had
the full advantage of Lord B's. improvements ; and then I will
expect something like the waters of Riskins — [a place of Lord
Bathurst's near Windsor, in Buckinghamshire], — and the
woods of Oakley together, which (without flattery) would be
at least as good as anything in our world ; for as to the
hanging gardens of Babylon, the Paradise of Cyprus, and the
Sharawaggi's of China, I have little or no idea of them, but,
I dare say Lord B. has, because they were certainly both
very great and very wild. I hope Mrs. Mary Digby is quite
tired of his Lordship's Extravagante Bergerie : and that she
is just now sitting or rather reclining on a bank, fatigued
with over much dancing and singing at his unwearied request
and instigation. I know your love of ease so well, that you
might be in danger of being too quiet to enjoy quiet, and
too philosophical to be a philosopher ; were it not for the
ferment Lord B. will put you into. One of his Lordship's
maxims is, that a total abstinence from intemperance or
business, is no more philosophy than a total consopiation of
66
HISTORY OF THE BATHURST FAMILY.
the senses is repose ; one must feel enough of its contrary
to have a relish of either."
The description of Lord B's. restless vivacity accords
with what Pope writes a few years later of Lord Bathurst :
"My Lord is too much for me, he walks and is in spirits
all day long ; I rejoice to see him so. It is a right distinc-
tion that I am happier in seeing my friends so many
degrees above me, be it in fortune, health or pleasures, than
I can be in sharing either with them : for in these sort of
enjoyments I cannot keep pace with them, any more than I
can walk with a stronger man."
The following is a letter to Lord Bathurst from Pope : —
"September 13.
I believe you are by this time immersed in your vast
wood; and one may address to you as to a very abstracted
person, like Alexander Selkirk, or the self-taught philosopher
(the title of an Arabic Treatise of the Ufe of Hai Ebn
Yocktan, explaining the mystic theology of the Mahometans).
I should be very curious to know what sort of contemplations
employ you. I remember the latter of those I mentioned,
gave himself up to a devout exercise of making his head
giddy with various circumrotations, to imitate the motions of
the celestial bodies. I don't think it at all impossible that
Mr. L. may be far advanced in that exercise, by frequent
turns towards the several aspects of the heavens, to which
you may have been pleased to direct him in search of
prospects and new avenues. He will be tractable in time,
as birds are tamed by being whirled about ; and doubtless
come not to despise the meanest shrubs or coppice-wood,
though naturally he seems more inclined to admire God in
his greater works, the tall timber ; for as Virgil has it, Non
oinnes arbrusta juvant^ humilesqiie myricae. I wish myself
67
HISTORY OF THE BATHURST FAMILY.
with you both, whether you are in peace or at war, in violent
argumentation or smooth consent, over Gazettes in the
morning, or over plans in the evening. In that last article,
I am of opinion your Lordship has a loss of me ; for
generally after the debate of a whole day, we acquiesced at
night, in the best conclusion of which human reason seems
capable in all great matters, to fall fast asleep ! And so we
ended, unless immediate Revelation (which ever must
overcome human reason), suggested some new lights to us,
by a Vision in bed. But laying aside theory, I am told
you are going directly to practice. Alas, what a fall will that
be ? A new building is like a new church ; when once it is
set up, you must maintain it in all the forms, and with
all the inconveniences ; then cease the pleasant luminous
days of inspiration, and there is an end of miracles at once 1
That this letter may be all of a piece, I'll fill the rest
with an account of a consultation lately held in my
neighbourhood about designing a princely garden. Several
critics were of several opinions; one declared he would not
have too much art in it ; for my notion (said he) of garden-
ing is, that it is only sweeping nature ; another told them
that gravel walks were not of a good taste, for all the finest
abroad were of a loose sand ; a third advised peremptorily
there should not be one lime tree in the whole plantation ;
a fourth made the same exclusive clause extend to horse-
chestnuts, which he affirmed not to be trees, but weeds ;
Dutch elms were condemned by a fifth; and thus about half
the trees were proscribed, contrary to the paradise of God's
own planting, which is expressly said to be planted with all
trees. There were some who could not bear ever-greens, and
called them never-greens ; some who were angry at them
only when cut into shapes, and gave the modern Gardeners
68
HISTORY OF THE BATHURST FAMILY.
the name of Ever-green Taylors ; some who had no dislike
to Cones and Cubes, but would have them cut in Forest
trees; and some who were in a passion against anything in
shape, even against dipt hedges, which they called green
walls. These (my Lord) are our men of taste, who pretend
to prove it by tasting little or nothing. Sure such a taste is
like such a stomach, not a good one, but a weak one. We
have the same sort of critics in poetry; one is fond of
nothing but Heroics, another cannot relish Tragedies, another
hates Pastorals, all little wits delight in Epigrams. Will you
give me leave to add, there are the same in Divinity ; where
many leading Critics are for rooting up more than they
plant, and would leave the Lord's Vineyard either very
thinly furnished, or very oddly trimmed.
I have lately been with my Lord *, who is a zealous,
yet a charitable Planter, and has so bad a taste as to like
all that i§ good. He has a disposition to wait on you on
his way to the Bath, and if he can go and return to
London in eight or ten days, I am not without a hope of
seeing your Lordship with the delight I always see you.
Every where I think of you, and every where I wish for
you.
I am etc."
Pope writes to Lady Mary Wortley Montague from
Cirencester (Sept. 15th, 1721): — "I very much envy you
your musical company, which you have a sort of obligation
to believe, in return to a man, who singly asserts your fine
taste that way, in contradiction to the whole world.
It must be sure from that piece of merit (for I have no
other that I know of towards you), that you can think of
flattering me at an hundred miles distance, in the most
affecting manner, by a mention of my trees and garden.
69
HISTORY OF THE BATHURST FAMILY.
What an honour it is to my great walk, that the finest
woman in this world cannot stir from it ? That walk
extremely well answered the intent of its contriver, when it
detained her there. But for this accident, how had I
despised and totally forgot my own little Colifichies, in
the daily views of the noble scenes, openings and avenues
of this immense design at Cirencester ? No words, nor
painting, nor poetry (not even your own), can give the least
image proportionable to it. And my Lord Bathurst bids me
tell you, and the young lady with you, that the description
would cost me much more time than it would cost you to
come hither ; which, if you have any regard, either for my
pains or reputation, you will do to save me that trouble, as
well as to take to yourself the glory of describing it.
For lodging you need be under no manner of concern ;
for he invites thither every woman he sees, and every man ;
those of a more aerial or musical nature, may lodge upon
the trees with the birds ; and those of a more earthy or
gross temperature, with the beasts of the field upon the
ground."
Pope dedicated one of his " Moral Essays," the Epistle
on the Use of Riches, to Allen Lord Bathurst,
P® ^ and addresses him in the following lines : —
dedication ,, „, ^ , t,-, -.i .1 a .
" The sense to value Riches, with the Art
.„ ,, , T'enioy them, and the Virtue to impart,
Bathurst. ., ' ^- • , \.
Not meanly, nor ambitiously pursued,
Not sunk by sloth, nor raised by servitude :
To balance Fortune by a just expence,
Join with Economy, Magnificence ;
With Splendor, Charity ; with Plenty, Health !
Oh teach us, Bathurst ! yet unspoil'd by wealth !
That secret rare, between th' extremes to move
Of mad Good-nature, and of mean Self-love."
70
HISTORY OF THE BATHURST FAMILY.
And in another Epistle on the same subject, he writes ■.' —
" Who then shall grace, or who improve the Soil ?
Who plants like Bathurst, or who builds hke Boyle,
'Tis Use alone that sanctifies Expense,
And Splendor borrows all her rays from Sense."
Dr. Arbuthnot, Queen Anne's favourite physician, writes
in his old age : —
" Lord Bathurst I have always honoured, for every good
quality that a person of his rank ought to have ;
Letter pj.^y^ gj^g ^-^^ respects and kindest wishes to
^ the family. My venison stomach is gone,
Arh til t ^^^ ^ have those about me and often with me,
to Pope. ^'^*-* ^^'^^ ^^ ^^''y S^^d of his present. If it is
left at my house, it will be transmitted safe
to me."
In a letter to Swift, Lord Bathurst, who was the happy
father of nine children, alludes to the Dean's
Letter rather ghastly satire, suggesting a means for
from relieving the distresses of the Irish by fattening
Lord ^Y\e\r children for the table. He writes : —
Bathurst u t jj • j- . i • t ,
"I did immediately propose it to Lady
Swift Bathurst as your advice, particularly for her
last boy, which was born the plumpest and
finest thing that could be seen ; but she fell into a passion,
and bid me send you word that she would not follow up
your direction, but that she would breed him to be a parson,
and he shall live upon the fat of the land ; or a lawyer,
and then instead of being eat himself, he shall devour
others. You know women in a passion never mind
what they say ; but as she is a very reasonable woman, I
have almost brought her over now to your opinion, and have
7*
HISTORY OF THE BATHURST FAMILY.
convinced her that, as matters stood, we could not possibly
maintain all the nine ; she does begin to think it reasonable
that the youngest should raise fortunes for the eldest."
The date of Queen Anne's Column in the Park at
Cirencester is fixed by a remark of Lord Orrery in a letter
to Swift, dated July yth, 1741 : — "Lord Bathurst is at
Cirencester, erecting Tillars and Statues to Queen Anne."
Sterne, in his "Letters to Eliza," gives a very pleasmg
description of Allen, Lord Bathurst, in his old
Sterne's age. "This nobleman," he says, "is an old
account friend of mine ; he was always the protector of
01 Al en ^^^^^ ^|- ^^jj. ^^^ genius ; and has had those of
B th t ^^^ ^^^^ century always at his table. The
manner in which this notice began of me, was
as singular as it was polite. He came up to me one day,
as I was at the Princess of Wales's court, ' I want to know
you, Mr. Sterne ; but it is fit you should know also who it
is that wishes this pleasure ; you have heard,' continued he,
'of an old Lord Bathurst, of whom your Popes and Swifts
have sung and spoken so much ; I have lived my life with
geniuses of that cast, but have survived them ; and despairing
ever to find their equals, it is some years since I have
closed my accounts, and shut up my books, with thoughts
of never opening them again ; but you have kindled a desire
in me of opening them once more before I die, which I now
do, so go home, and dine with me.' This nobleman, I say,
is a prodigy, for at eighty-five he has all the wit and
promptness of a man of thirty ; a disposition to be pleased,
and a power to please others beyond whatever I knew;
added to which a man of learning, courtesy and feeling."
73
HISTORY OF THE BATHURST FAMILY.
It has been said that Lord Bathurst's praises were
celebrated in prosaic verses by Pope, and in
Speech poetical prose by Burke. The latter is a
reference to a famous speech by Burke on
Reconciliation with America, delivered in the early part of
1 775) within a few months of Lord Bathurst's death.
The orator, with the imagination of a true poet, having
drawn the attention of the House to the rapid growth of
the colonies, and the respect with which, on account of
their wealth and population, they ought to be treated, thus
proceeded : — ■" Mr. Speaker, I cannot prevail upon myself
to hurry over this great consideration. It is good for us to
be here. We stand where we have a vast view of what is,
and what is past. Clouds, indeed, and darkness rest upon
the future. Let us, however, before we descend from this
noble eminence, reflect that this growth of our national
prosperity has happened within the short period of the life
of man. It has happened within sixty-eight years. There
are those alive whose memory might touch the two
extremities. For instance, my Lord Bathurst might remember
all the stages of the progress. He was in 1704 of an age
at least to be made to comprehend such things. He was
then old enough acta parentuni jam legere, et quo:, sit poterit
cognoscere virtus. Suppose, sir, that the angel of this
auspicious youth, foreseeing the many virtues which made
him one of the most amiable, as he is one of the most
fortunate men of his age, had opened to him in vision that
when in the fourth generation, the third prince of the House
of Brunswick had sat twelve years on the throne of that
nation which (by the happy issues of moderate and healing
councils,) was to be made Great Britain, he should
see his son. Lord Chancellor of England, turn back
73 K
HISTORY OF THE BATHURST FAMILY.
the current of hereditary dignity to its fountain and raise
him to an higher rank of peerage, whilst he enriched the
family with a new one. If amidst these bright and happy
scenes of domestic honour and prosperity, that angel should
have drawn up the curtain and unfolded the rising glories
of his country, and whilst he was gazing with admiration on
the then commercial grandeur of England, the genius should
point out to him a little speck, scarce visible in the mass of
the national interest, a small seminal principal, rather than a
formed body, and should tell him, ' Young man ! there is
America which at this day serves for little more than to
amuse you with stories of savage men and uncouth manners ;
yet shall, before you taste of death, show itself equal to the
whole of that commerce which now attracts the envy of the
world. Whatever England has been growing to by a pro-
gressive increase of improvement, brought in by varieties of
people, by succession of civilising conquests and civilising
settlements, in a series of seventeen hundred years, you shall
see as much added to her by America in the course of a
single life.' If this state of his country had been foretold
to him, would it not require all the sanguine credulity of
youth, and the fervid glow of enthusiasm to make him
believe it ? Fortunate man, he has lived to see it !
Fortunate, indeed, if he lives to see nothing that shall vary
the prospect, and cloud the setting of his day ! "
Up to within a month of his death. Lord Bathurst con-
stantly rode out on horse-back, two hours before dinner,
and drank his bottle of Claret or Madeira after dinner.
He used to declare that he never could think of adopting
Dr. Cadogan's method (which apparently involved a rule
of temperance), as Dr. Cheyne had assured him, fifty years
ago, he would never live seven years longer, unless he
74
HISTORY OF THE BATHURST FAMILY.
abridged himself of his wine. In accordance with this
maxim, Lord Bathurst having, about two years ago, invited
several of his friends to spend a few cheerful days with him
at Cirencester ; and being one evening unwilling to part
with them, on his son, the Lord Chancellor objecting to
their sitting up any longer, and saying that health and long
life were best secured by regularity he allowed him to
retire ; but as soon as he was gone, the cheerful father
said : — " Come, my good friends, since the old gentleman is
gone to bed, I think we may crack another bottle."
His death happened at Cirencester, after a few days'
illness, in the 91st year of his age, and on the i6th of
September, 1775.
His eldest son Benjamin died before his father, leaving
no children. He married Lady Elizabeth Bruce,
Benjamin daughter of the Earl of Elgin and Ailesbury,
who was one of the twelve Lords created by
Queen Anne in 1711 to support the Peace of Utrecht, being
called to the Upper House in his father's lifetime, under the
title of Lord Bruce, whose mother. Lady Elizabeth Seymour,
was a sister of " the proud Duke of Somerset," and was
descended from Henry VH., through that king's youngest
daughter, Mary Tudor. Lady " Betty " Bathurst's mother
was Lady Anne Saville, daughter of the Marquis of Halifax.
Lady Betty was a musician, and has left a relic behind her
at Cirencester in her organ. She was a correspondent of
Horace Walpole, but, unfortunately, Walpole's letters to her
have not been preserved.
Henry, 2nd Earl Bathurst, was born May 2nd, 17 14,
TT and was educated at Christ Church, Oxford ;
2j^^ and, being a second son, adopted the law
Earl. as a profession. He went into Parliament
75
HISTORY OF THE BATHURST FAMILY.
in 1736, and sat first for Cirencester, and afterwards for
Gloucestershire till 1751.
Though Mr. Bathurst spoke rarely, he was a constant
attender in the House, and his vote might always be
reckoned upon by the opponents of Sir Robert Walpole.
He joined the Leicester House party, and in 1745 was made
Solicitor General to the Prince of Wales, on which occasion
the rank of King's Counsel was conferred upon him.
In 1749, he opposed the grant of an indemnity to the
citizens of Glasgow for the loss they had sustained in the
late rebellion, contending that they ought to have made a
stouter resistance to the rebels, and that such indemnities
would lessen the disposition to oppose foreign or domestic
enemies, and pointing out the burning of Penzance by the
Spaniards, in the reign of Elizabeth, and of Teignmouth,
with all the ships in its harbour by the French, in the
reign of William HI., when no compensation from parliament
was made to the sufferers, or asked by them. The same
session he spoke upon his favourite subject, the manning of
the navy, condemning the plan brought forward by ministers
for that purpose. In 1750, he delivered a long oration
about the demolition of the port of Dunkirk, a favourite
topic for the assailants of successive governments for half a
century.
Meanwhile he continued steadily to attend the courts in
Westminster Hall, and to go to the Oxford
01 circuit. While at the bar, he was engaged in a
Miss V
_, , "cause celebre," the trial, at Oxford, in 17^2,
of Miss Blandy for the murder of her father,
which he had to conduct for the Crown as the leader of
the circuit. Miss Blandy was the only daughter of an
attorney at Henley, who had thought to serve her interests
76
HISTORY OF THE BATHURST FAMILY.
by giving out that she was the heiress to a larger fortune
than was, in fact, the case ; and, unfortunately for her and
for him, attracted a Captain Cranstoun, who professed himself
a devoted lover of Miss Blandy. The father, however, posit-
ively refused his consent to the marriage, and it is said that
the lovers then decided to poison him. Captain Cranstoun
sent his fiancee some Scotch pebbles, with some powder to
clean them, which was, in fact, white arsenic ; and this
arsenic Miss Blandy administered to her father. Mr. Bathurst's
speech for the prosecution was a powerful one ; and Miss
Blandy was convicted and hung, protesting to her last
moment that she had no intention of injuring her father,
and that she thought the powder would make him love her,
and give his consent to her union with Captain Cranstoun.
The instigator of the crime seems to have escaped from
justice altogether.
Mr. Bathurst continued leagued in politics with those
who placed all their hopes of preferment on the accession of
a new Sovereign, and at the commencement of the session
of 1 75 1, he opposed the address to the King.
Frederick, Prince of Wales, soon after dying suddenly,
Mr. Bathurst went over, with a number of his party, to the
Court, and was, in 1754, made by Lord Hardwicke a puisne
judge of the Court of Common Pleas.
In February 1770, on the death of Ford Chancellor Yorke,
the great Seal was put in commission, the
Made Lord commissioners being Sir Sidney Stafford Smythe,
Sir Richard Aston and the Honourable Henry
Bathurst; and the following year the commission was dissolved
and Henry Bathurst was made Lord Chancellor, and raised to
the peerage by the title of Baron Apsley of Apsley in Sussex.
He was sworn in at a council at St. James's the first day of
77
HISTORY OF THE BATHURST FAMILY.
Hilary Term. Two days after he led a grand procession from
his house in Dean Street to Westminster Hall, attended by
the great officers of state, and many of the nobility, and
he was duly installed in the Court of Chancery. He held
the office between seven and eight years. His maiden speech,
as a Lord, was in defence of the Royal Marriage Act.
The best remembered judicial proceeding in which he
took part was that of the trial of the Duchess
Trial of of Kingston for bigamy, by the House of Lords,
^^® which was held in Westminster Hall, April 15th,
TJiipVipciQ
1776, and for which Lord Bathurst was ap-
Kinffston pointed Lord High Steward. The Duchess had
been a well-known beauty in her youth, when,
as Miss Chudleigh, she was maid of honour to the Princess
of Wales, mother of George IH. In spite of many suitors,
she still remained Miss Chudleigh ; the fact being that she
had privately married a young lieutenant in the navy, Mr.
Hervey, whom she had not seen for many years. The
marriage had taken place late one August night, 1744, at
Launceston in Hampshire, by the light of a wax taper, placed
in the "bowl" of the hat of a gentleman, who with an aunt
of Miss Chudleigh, was one of the few witnesses of the
ceremony. Mr. Hervey afterwards became Earl of Bristol,
but he and his wife were completely estranged, and both
seem to have repented of their hasty marriage. They agreed
to a suit in the Ecclesiastical Court, by which they obtained
a decree of nullity of marriage, though not without an oath
on Miss Chudleigh's part which went perilously near the wind
in regard to the facts of the marriage. On the strength of
this. Miss Chudleigh, twenty-five years after her first mar-
riage, was united to Evelyn Pierrepont, Duke of Kingston ;
and it was not till after his death that the validity of this
78
HISTORY OF THE BATHURST FAMILY.
marriage was called in question by the heirs of the Duke,
who claimed part of the fortune left to his widow. West-
minster Hall was fitted up with as much grandeur as when
Charles I, was tried there before Lord President Bradshaw
and the " High Court of Justice," although in this instance,
it was known that a conviction could only lead to an
admonition "that the lady should not do the like again."
When she first appeared at the bar, and curtseyed to the
Peers, his Grace the Lord High Steward thus addressed her :
— " Madam, you stand indicted for having married a second
husband, your first husband being living. A crime so de-
structive of the peace and happiness of private families, and
so injurious in its consequences to the welfare and good
order of society, that by the statute law of this kingdom it
was for many years (in your sex) punishable with death ;
the lenity, however, of later times has substituted a milder
punishment in its stead. This consideration must necessarily
tend to lessen the perturbation of your spirits upon such an
awful occasion. But that, Madam, which, next to the inward
feelings of your own conscience, will afford you most comfort
is, reflecting upon the honour, the wisdom, and the candour
of this high court of criminal jurisdiction. It is, Madam, by
your particular desire that you now stand at that bar. In
"your petition to the Lords, praying for a speedy trial, you
assumed the title of Dowager Duchess of Kingston, and you
likewise averred that Augustus John Hervey, whose wife the
indictment charges you with being, is at this time Earl of
Bristol. On examining the records, the Lords are satisfied
of the truth of that averment, and have accordingly allowed
you the privilege you petitioned for, of being tried by your
peers in full Parliament ; and from them you will be sure
to meet with nothing but justice, tempered with humanity."
HISTORY OF THE BATHURST FAMILY.
The great question was whether the sentence of the
Ecclesiastical Court, which had been obtained, adjudging that
there had been no prior marriage, was binding upon the
House of Lords in this proceeding? This having been most
learnedly argued by Thurlow and Wedderburn on the one
side, and Wallace and Dunning on the other, the Lord High
Steward, by the authority of the House, submitted it to the
Judges. They gave an opinion in the negative, and the trial
was ordered to proceed.
It was then proved by the clearest evidence that the
Duchess, w^hen Miss Chudleigh, and a maid of honour, had
been secretly married to the Honourable A. J. Hervey, at
that time a Lieutenant in the Navy, now Earl of Bristol,
and that they lived together for some days, although after-
wards, repenting of what they had done, they collusively
tried to have the marriage declared null in the Ecclesiastical
Court ; and that she had then married Evelyn Pierrepont,
Duke of Kingston. The Lords unanimously found her
guilty ; one Lord adding, " erroneously, not intentionally."
Lord High Steward : " Madam, the Lords have considered
the charge and evidence brought against you, and have like-
wise considered of every thing which you have alleged in
your defence ; and upon the whole matter their Lordships
have found you guilty of the felony whereof you stand in-
dicted. What have you to allege against judgement being
pronounced upon you ? " She, having prayed the privilege
of the peerage, to be exempt from punishment, and after
argument a resolution being passed that she was entitled to
it, the Lord High Steward said to her : " Madam, the Lords
have considered of the prayer you have made, and the Lords
allow it. But, Madam, let me add, that although very little
punishment, or none, can now be inflicted, the feelings of
80
HISTORY OF THE BATHURST' FAMILY.
your own conscience will supply that defect. And let me
give you this information, likewise, that you can never have
the like benefit a second time, but another offence of the
same kind will be capital. Madam, you are discharged,
paying your fees." His Grace then broke his white wand,
and dissolved the Commission.
A spectator of the trial {Mr. Henry Cowper) who gave
an account of it in after years to one who is now living
(1889), remarked that, as the lady was past fifty, and seemed
to young eyes to have quite outlived all personal attractions,
it appeared unnecessary to warn her against the repetition
of her offence. The Duchess fainted, or pretended to faint,
on hearing the verdict, and was carried out of court, her
high-heeled shoe striking the same spectator on the mouth.
The Chancellor was, unfortunately, a member of the
Cabinet which originated and carried out the
War with disastrous war with America, but it does not
merica. ^^ppg^r that he took an active part in this policy,
as he usually confined himself to questions connected with
law.
An unsuccessful attempt was made at one time to cor-
rupt him by a secret offer to (Tryphena) Lady
Dr. Dodd. Bathurst of 3000 guineas, for the living of St.
George's, Hanover Square, which was in the
Chancellor's gift. The offer was traced to the famous Dr.
Dodd, then a King's Chaplain, and he was immediately
dismissed from that office. He was a very popular preacher
of the day, but to the dismay of his numerous admirers, he
was subsequently convicted of forgery, and hung.
Lord Bathurst resigned the Great Seal in June, 1788,
Resigns the ^^^^^ which he was made President of the
Great SeaL Council.
HISTORY OF THE BATHURST FAMILY.
The Lord President was the organ of the Government in
the House of Lords respecting the proceedings
■^^^^ to be taken in consequence of Lord George
" . . Gordon's riots. These riots were occasioned by
Riots.
an attempt on the part of the government to
relax the cruel and unjust laws against the Roman Catholics.
Lord George Gordon got up a " No Popery " cry ; and,
accompanied by a disorderly mob of many thousand persons,
he marched through the streets to the Houses of Parliament,
on the 2nd of June, 1780, with the intention of presenting
a monster petition, complaining of the relaxation of the
Penal Laws. No precautions having been taken against the
progress of the mob, they took possession of Palace Yard
some time before the two Houses met, as they did later in
the afternoon. Then, with only a few doorkeepers and
messengers between them and some of the principal objects
of their fury, they were not long in learning the dangerous
secret of their strength. The lords, in approaching West-
minster Hall, were in serious danger from the violence of
the mob, and it was with the utmost difficulty and after
much ill usage, that they could force their way through
Palace Yard. Lord Mansfield — who was particularly unpopular
with the Protestant Associators, because he had, not long
since, charged a jury to acquit a Roman Catholic priest,
who was brought before him, charged with the crime of
celebrating Mass— no sooner made his appearance, than his
carriage was assailed and its windows broken, while the
venerable judge, the object of the fiercest execrations as "a
notorious Papist," made his way into the House with great
difficulty, and on entering could not conceal his torn robe
and his dishevelled wig. He took his seat on the woolsack
(in the place of Lord Chancellor Thurlow, who was ill),
82
HISTORY OF THE BATHURST FAMILY.
pale, and quivering like an aspen. The Archbishop of
York's lawn sleeves were torn off and flung in his face.
The Bishop of Lincoln, disliked as a brother of Lord
Thurlow, fared still worse; his carriage was demoUshed, while
the prelate, half fainting, sought refuge in an adjacent house,
from which, on recovering himself, he made his escape in
another dress (some said in a woman's,) along the leads.
From Lord President Bathurst they pulled his wig, telling
him, in contumelious terms, that he was "the Pope," and
also "an old woman;" thus, says Horace Walpole, splitting
into two their notion of Pope Joan ! The Duke of North-
umberland, having with him in his coach a gentleman in
black, a cry arose among the multitude that the person thus
attired must be a Jesuit and the Duke's confessor; on the
strength of this, his Grace was forced from his carriage, and
robbed of his watch and purse. Still, however, as the peers
by degrees came in, the business of the House in regular
course proceeded. Prayers were read, some formal business
transacted, and the Duke of Richmond made a motion, as
arranged, in favour of annual parliaments and unrestricted
suffrage, and proceeded to state his reasons for thinking that,
under present circumstances, political powers might safely be
entrusted to the lowest orders of the people. His Grace
was still speaking, when Lord Montfort burst into the House,
and broke through his harangue. Lord Montfort said that
he felt bound to acquaint their Lordships of the perilous
situation in which, at that very moment, stood one of their
own members, he meant Lord Boston, whom the mob had
dragged out of his coach, and were cruelly maltreating.
"At this instant," says an eye witness, "it is hardly possible
to conceive a more grotesque appearance than the House
exhibited. Some of their Lordships with their hair about
83
HISTORY OF THE BATHURST FAMILY,
their shoulders; others smutted with dirt; most of them as
pale as the ghost in Hamlet; and all of them standing up
in their several places, and speaking at the same instant.
One Lord proposing to send for the Guards, another for the
Justices or Civil Magistrates, many crying out. Adjourn !
Adjourn ! while the skies resounded with the huzzas, shout-
ings, or hootings and hissings in Palace Yard. This scene
of unprecedented alarm continued for about half-an-hour."
Lord Bathurst showed great courage, and rose from the
ministerial benches to implore order, and to make a regular
motion ; but he could not procure a hearing. Lord Towns-
hend offered to be one that would go in a body to the
rescue of their brother peer. The Duke of Richmond,
however, as a piece of pleasantry, — somewhat ill-timed, — ■
suggested that if they went as a House, the mace ought to
be carried before the noble and learned Lord on the wool-
sack, who (the Bishops being excused,) should go at their
head, followed by the Lord President of the Council (Lord
Bathurst), the next in rank who could fight. Lord Mansfield,
then acting as Speaker in the absence of the Lord Chancellor,
declared his readiness to do his duty. This proposal was
still debating, rather too slowly for its object, when Lord
Boston himself came in, with his hair dishevelled, and his
clothes covered with hair-powder and mud. He had been
exposed to especial danger, through a wholly unfounded
suggestion from some persons in the crowd, that he was a
Roman Catholic ; upon which the multitude, with loud im-
precations, had threatened to cut the sign of the cross upon
his forehead. But he had the skill to engage some of the
ringleaders in a controversy on the question whether the
Pope be Antichrist ; and while they were eagerly discussing
that favourite point, he contrived to slip through them.
84
HISTORY OF THE BATHURST FAMILY.
After such alarms, however, the Peers did not resume the
original debate. They summoned to the Bar two of the
Middlesex Magistrates, who declared that they had received
no orders from the Government, and that, with all their
exertions since the beginning of the tumult, they had only
been able to collect six constables. Finally, after some
further tumultuous discussion, at eight o'clock, Lord Bathurst
moved an adjournment, which was carried. The House had
already gradually thinned, most of the Lords having either
retired to the coffee-houses, or gone off in hackney-carriages,
while others walked home under favour of the dusk of the
evening, leaving Lord Mansfield, in the seventy-sixth year of
his age, alone and unprotected, save by the officers of the
House and his own servants. Meanwhile, the mob forced
its way into the lobby of the House of Commons, while
Lord George Gordon presented the petition within the
House. At last the crowd was dispersed by the arrival of
a detachment of Guards, who, however, did not succeed in
preventing them from burning down two Roman Catholic
chapels, by way of finishing the amusements of the day.
Next day, in the House of Lords, " Earl Bathurst called
the attention of the House to the great fall from dignity
which their Lordships had suffered the preceding day, in
consequence of the gross insults and violence offered to
many of their Lordships' persons by the rioters and unruly
mob which had assembled in the streets, and not only in-
terrupted the members of that House in their way to it,
and prevented many from coming to do their duty in
Parliament, but had obliged others, after a compulsory
adjournment, to steal away like guilty things, to save them-
selves from being sacrificed to lawless fury. Their Lordships
had witnessed the insults and violence offered to the persons
85
HISTORY OF THE BATHURST FAMILY.
of several of their Lordships ; but others had been still
greater sufferers ; in particular, a right reverend Prelate (the
Bishop of Lincoln), had been stopped in the street, — had
been forced out of his coach, — the wheels of which were
taken off,— and having sought refuge in a private house, had
been followed by the mob, and had been obliged to make
his escape in disguise. Before their Lordships proceeded to
any other business, it behoved them to do something for the
recovery of their dignity, by bringing the offenders to justice.
He concluded by moving an address to his Majesty, praying
'that he would give immediate directions for prosecuting in
the most effectual manner, the authors, abettors, and instru-
ments of the outrages committed yesterday in Palace Yard
and places adjacent' " After a debate, in which the Govern-
ment was severely blamed for negligence, in not taking proper
measures to secure the peace of the metropolis, the motion
was agreed to.
Unfortunately, Lord Bathurst's good advice was not
followed up with sufficient firmness ; and the populace con-
tinued for several days to re-assemble and commit many
lawless acts, burning and plundering the houses of Roman
Catholics and other persons who had offended them, and
finally burning down Newgate and setting free 300 prisoners,
. — in fact, London was completely at the mercy of the
roughs for a week, before the military succeeded in reducing
them to order. As the sheriffs and jailers had become
liable to very heavy fines and punishments for allowing the
prisoners to escape, although they were not really guilty of
any negligence. Lord Bathurst made a motion that the Judges
should prepare a Bill "to indemnify the sheriffs and jailers
for the escape of the prisoners during the late tumults;"
and the Bill was brought in and passed without opposition.
86
HISTORY OF THE RATHURST FAMILY.
Lord Bathurst resigned his office of President of the
Council in March, 1782, on the fall of Lord
Resigns North's ministry. There was then no Parlia-
_ ., , mentary allowance for ex-chancellors, and he de-
President ,. , , , . ^ .
nf thp clined the grant of a pension. During a few years
Council. following he occasionally attended in his place
in the House of Lords, but he did not mix in
party contests. He was acknowledged, even by his opponents,
to be a person of thorough honesty and integrity.
Character, and was much praised for his temperate and
regular habits (an unusual virtue in those days),
and for the dignity and courtesy of his manners. In public
life (as he often boasted,) he made no enemies, and in
private life he was universally beloved. He remained a
bachelor till he was forty, when he married a
Marriage. widow, — Mrs. Phillips, — who, in four years, died
without bringing him any children. In the fol-
lowing year, 1759, he married Tryphena, daughter of Thomas
Scawen, of Maidwell in Northamptonshire, whose mother
was a daughter of Lord William Russell, — another Tryphena,
— and by this wife he had six children. He spent the last
years of life entirely at Cirencester, and died
Death. there, after a gradual decay, on the 6th of
August, 1794, at the age of eighty. He was
buried in the family vault there, and a monument to his
memory was erected in the parish church, with this simple
and touching inscription, which he himself had composed : — •
" In Memory of Henry Earl Bathurst, Son and Heir of
Allen Earl Bathurst, and Dame Catherine, his wife. His
ambition was to render himself not unworthy such Parents."
87
HISTORY OF THE BATHURST FAMILY.
It was he who gave the name to Apsley House, which
he built on a piece of ground that had origin-
Apsley ally been granted by George II. to an old
House. soldier called Allen, whose wife kept an apple-
stall on it. This apple-stall being given up, the
ground was supposed to be Crown land, and a lease was
granted to the Lord Chancellor, Lord Apsley, who proceeded
to build a house upon it ; but the soldier's widow, aided by
her son, who had risen in the world and become an
attorney, filed a bill against the Chancellor, who was glad
to compromise the matter, by giving the old apple -woman
a sum of money, although it may be doubted whether or
not George II. had any right to give away Crown land.
This transaction caused a witty barrister to say : — " Here
is a suit by one old woman against another old woman ; and
the Chancellor has been beaten in his own court." Apsley
House was originally built of red brick. It was sold about
the beginning of this century by the 3rd Earl.
Most of the particulars here given of the Chancellor's
life are taken from Lord Campbell's Lives of the Lord
Chancellors, vol. v., with some additions from Lord Stanhope's
History of England, and other sources.
The Chancellor left six children by his second wife, of
whom the eldest, Henry, succeeded him.
Henry, 3rd Earl Bathurst, held various offices under the
Crown. He was a Teller of the Exchequer,
Henry, Clerk of the Crown, Elder Brother of the
3rd Earl. Trinity House, D. C. L., F. R. S., F. S. A., and
Master Worker of the Mint. In 1807 he
became President of the Board of Trade, in the Duke
of Portland's ministry, and in 1809 Secretary of State for
Foreign Affairs, which office, however, he only held froni
HISTORY OF THE BATHURST FAMILY.
October to December, when the Duke of Portland went
out of office. In Mr. Spencer Perceval's ministry, December,
1809, he was President of the Board of the Trade again;.
and in 181 2 he became Colonial Secretary, and remained
in that office for nearly 16 years, under three successive
Prime Ministers, Lord Liverpool, George Canning, and Lord
Goderich. Under the Duke of Wellington's administration,,
from 1828 to 1830, he was President of the Council.
He married Georgina, daughter of Lord George Lennox,
and sister of Charles, 4th Duke of Richmond.
Mem. with reference to the Bag of the Great Seal, date
1 65 1, representing the Long Parliament; now at Cirencester
House : —
A new great seal was made by order of the Parlia-
ment immediately after Charles L's death, which took
place January 30th, 1649, according to modern style, but as
at that time and up to 1752 the year in England was
considered to begin on Lady-day (March 25th), the three
first months of the year were counted in 1648. The
Parliament had already, in 1643, had a seal made for its
. own use, to supersede the royal seal, but this was an exact
imitation of the king's seal. The seal of 1648 was entirely
different. Clarendon describes it as having on one side the
arms of England and Ireland ; but this must have been
changed later, as in a print of it as it was in 1651 (see Old
England) there is a map of England and Ireland, with some
8q m
HISTORY OF THE BATHURST FAMILY.
large-sized ships sailing up the Channel — the British Sea, as
it is called. On the other side was a representation of the
Parliament, similar to the design on the bag at Cirencester
in many details, but with a greater number of members,
and the table with the mace placed higher up, close to the
Speaker. Round it were the words : — " In the first yeare of
freedome by God's blessing restored, 1648."
With regard to the figures of the Speaker, and of the
person standing at the head of the mace : Lenthall was
Speaker from 1640 to 1653. The figure standing up is
most likely to be intended for Cromwell. There was no
•one who could be considered as Prime Minister at that
time, but there is a mention in Lingard's History of
England, date September i6th, 1651, of Cromwell's making
a speech in the House of Commons, and " resuming his
seat " there ; and it seems probable that he should have
■occupied the seat at the head of the mace, as he was
undoubtedly the head of the government.
The Great Seal was in commission from 1643 to 1653.
Among the six Commissioners were Oliver St. John, Earl of
Bullingbrook, and Mr. Oliver St. John. The latter is said
to have been a natural son of the house of Bullingbrook.
He played an important part in the Rebellion, and was
nicknamed "Oliver's Dark Lantern." He had been Solicitor-
General under Charles I., and was afterwards made Chief
Justice. The Apsleys were related to the St. Johns through
Lucy St. John, third wife of the first Sir Allen Apsley, and
mother of the second Sir Allen and Mrs. Hutchinson ; but
the blood relationship between Mr. St. John and the Apsleys
was not the cause of much friendship between them, since it
is recorded that one of the Apsle}s, probably Colonel James
90
HISTORY OF THE BATHURST FAMILY.
Apsley, brother of the second Sir Allen, attempted to
assassinate Mr. St. John in 1651, when St. John was on a
diplomatic mission from the Commonwealth at the Hague,
where Charles II. and his followers resided. Nor is it
likely that there was any friendship between the Earl of
Bullingbrook and the Apsleys, as, with the exception of the
two Mrs. Hutchinsons, all that branch of the Apsleys were
Cavaliers, so that it is very unlikely that the bag came into
the Apsley family directly from any of the Commissioners of
the Great Seal of the time, although it is probable that it
was the perquisite of one or other of these Commissioners,
and would most likely be handed down to his descendants
as an interesting relic. Now, if we suppose that it fell into
Lord Bullingbrook's hands, and descended to the inheritor
of his title, it is not difficult to account for its presence at
Cirencester. This Lord Bullingbrook (or Bolingbroke) died
without male heirs, and was succeeded by his brother Paulet,
who died without children in 171 1, when the title became
extinct. It might easily happen that this last Earl Boling-
broke might have left or given the bag to his cousin,
the famous Henry St. John, who was created Viscount
Bolingbroke, and was on terms of intimate friendship with
Allen, Lord Bathurst, whose cousin he was, as Henry St.
John was a great grandson of Sir John St. John, brother
to Lucy, Lady Apsley, who was Lord Bathurst's great
grandmother. St. John's Jacobitism was no crime in the
eyes of Lord Bathurst, the defender of Bishop Atterbury ;
and the bust and entire works of St. John, still to be seen
in the library of Cirencester House, remain as a sign to
this day of the close friendship which existed between the
two. Now, very shortly after the death of the last Earl
Bolingbroke, on the death of Queen Anne, in 17 14, Henry,
91
HISTORY OF THE BATHURST FAMILY.
Viscount Bolingbroke was forced to fly the country, on
account of his Jacobite opinions, and it seems no very
difficult thing to imagine that he may, at a time when
household goods were inconvenient to him, have presented
his friend Lord Bathurst with this interesting memorial of
their common relative.
SAVORY, STEAM PRESS, CIRENCESTER.
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